Chapter 83: Chapter 83
“So that’s how it was…”
Wang Xuanyang’s expression went blank. It was a long time before he could collect himself.
He had lived in Changyun County for over a decade, yet this was the first he had ever heard of such secrets.
After digesting it all, his throat bobbed. He couldn’t help but ask.
“Patriarch… Bai Qingcang went to all that trouble — rallied all those people to kill a Child of Destiny — and in the end couldn’t even recover the body. Wasn’t it all for nothing?”
“Not quite.”
Wang Zhidao shook his head.
“The Child of Destiny sank into the water, and the treasures on his person were beyond their reach.”
“But afterward, Bai Qingcang tracked down the cave dwelling where the Child of Destiny had been cultivating in seclusion and looted a considerable haul. Among the spoils was a cultivation method called the Yin Sunflower Benevolent-Sacrifice Phantom-Demon Scripture…”
“The Yin Sunflower Benevolent-Sacrifice Phantom-Demon Scripture…”
Wang Xuanyang murmured the name with a frown. “That sounds distinctly… heretical.”
“Heretical?”
Wang Zhidao’s gaze turned dark. He let out a cold, humorless laugh.
“It’s a demonic art!”
“A demonic art created by an ancient Demon Sovereign. Its method is utterly vile. Simply to break through from Late-stage Hidden Strength to Transforming Strength requires the ritual sacrifice — the draining of blood — from eighty-one boys and girls under the age of seven.”
“Live sacrifice of children…”
A chill crawled up Wang Xuanyang’s spine. His head snapped toward Wang Zhidao, his pupils trembling.
“Patriarch, you mean…?”
“Exactly.”
Wang Zhidao’s tone remained flat.
“Did Bai Qingcang think he could kill a Child of Destiny and walk away unscathed? Heaven’s punishment descended. His meridians and apertures calcified. No matter how he trained, his qi-blood refused to budge — it even began to regress.”
“In his terror, the old villain had no choice but to take up that Yin Sunflower Benevolent-Sacrifice Phantom-Demon Scripture. At the same time, he dispatched men to secretly abduct children from outer-city commoner families by the dozen, sacrificing them with the demonic ritual.”
“The very reason a demonic art is a demonic art is that it stands outside heaven’s law. Even under divine punishment, it stabilized the old ghost’s declining cultivation — and even let him break through to Transforming Strength.”
“As for that Dragon Creek Qi-Refining Pill the street rumors talk about…”
“Hmph! Bai Qingcang did hire Master Alchemist Mei to refine a pill from the Azure Dragon Carp. But that was nothing more than a smokescreen he put out to fool the world.”
“So that’s it!”
Wang Xuanyang sucked in a breath. It was like listening to a tale from some chronicle of the strange and uncanny. But his mind was sharp, and a moment’s thought revealed an inconsistency.
“But Patriarch… secrets this deep — how did you come to know them?”
“Ha…”
At this, Wang Zhidao raised his teacup for a sip. A flicker of self-satisfaction crossed his face.
“Naturally, I discovered early on that the Bai family was abducting outer-city children. So I invited Bai Qingcang to a banquet and squeezed the truth out of him — made it clear that if he didn’t give me the full story, I’d pass the information along to the Zhendong General…”
“By that point, the old ghost was deep into cultivating his demonic art and had already taken the lives of dozens of children.”
“He was terrified that the news would reach your father, or attract intervention from the righteous sects in the prefectural city. If that happened, his death would be certain.”
“So he spilled everything like beans from an upturned jar.”
“He even offered up a cultivation method of his own accord — to buy my silence. It was the very fist manual the Child of Destiny had given him at their first meeting.”
Wang Zhidao spoke lightly, as though it were a trifle. But the faint gleam of satisfaction in his eyes never quite faded.
As for the lives of those children Bai Qingcang had sacrificed…
What did that have to do with him?
They didn’t even warrant a pause or a tremor in his voice.
Wang Xuanyang was no different. Excitement crept across his face, and he pressed eagerly.
“May I ask, Patriarch — what fist art was it?”
Wang Zhidao smoothed his white robe, settled back into the great armchair, and answered with a light smile.
“Nothing remarkable. At most it could carry someone to Transforming Strength. It was called… the Through-Arm Fist.”
“A Transforming Strength fist art? The Through-Arm Fist? I’ve never heard of it…”
“It would be strange if you had. The method changed its face long ago.”
Wang Zhidao shook his head with a wry laugh, then looked squarely at Wang Xuanyang and spoke with deliberate weight.
“Its current name… is the Tongbei Stance.”
“The Tongbei Stance?!”
Wang Xuanyang’s mind rang as though a bell had been struck inside his skull. The words flew out before he could stop them.
“Tongbei Martial Hall’s Tongbei Stance?!”
“The very same.”
Wang Zhidao narrowed his eyes, as though savoring the memories of those long-ago events.
“Bai Qingcang admitted that when the Child of Destiny gave him the fist manual, the man had told him to study it diligently — that it would prove invaluable in years to come. But what exactly that use would be, the man refused to say.”
“After I obtained the manual, I immediately had it sent to your father.”
“That year, Zhifan had won the Emperor’s favor for his act of fealty and was ennobled as the Count of Jiu’an. While in the capital, he also made the acquaintance of the Imperial Observatory’s Daoist Master Yu. He asked the master to cast a divination.”
Wang Zhidao’s gaze turned fathomless.
“Daoist Master Yu’s reading showed: the Blessed Land would reopen eighteen years later. At that time, someone in Changyun County would come into contact with a Child of Destiny and become his follower. That person would be born in a martial hall, and their surname would be… Song.”
Wang Xuanyang’s heart nearly leapt from his chest.
“Song Hengjiang!”
Almost immediately, he shook his head.
“No, wait… Song Hengjiang was poisoned to death by his own daughter.”
Bewilderment surfaced in Wang Xuanyang’s eyes. He murmured, “Could it be… Song Huatang? The son Yan Xiao had locked in that secret dungeon?”
“Yes and no…”
Wang Zhidao smiled and continued.
“Later, your father altered a few key strokes of the Through-Arm Fist’s most essential core cultivation method — sabotaging the art’s circulation path. No matter how gifted the practitioner, they could never reach Transforming Strength through this flawed version.”
“He then renamed it the Tongbei Stance, arranged for it to fall into Song Hengjiang’s hands, and hinted that if Song practiced it diligently and used it as a token when the Blessed Land reopened, he could enter and claim the ancient legacy.”
“Song Hengjiang was overjoyed at his good fortune and guarded the secret with his life. But later…”
Wang Xuanyang drew a deep breath and picked up the thread.
“Later, word leaked. His daughter Song Yanrong found out, then poisoned him…”
“Wait — Song Yanrong… Patriarch, are you saying that she and Song Huatang — one of them is the person the divination foretold would make contact with the Child of Destiny?”
Seeing Wang Xuanyang arrive at the answer, Wang Zhidao’s eyes flashed with approval.
“Daoist Master Yu of the Imperial Observatory commands powers that pierce heaven and earth. A divination of his is never wrong.”
“No matter what twists occur, the foretold outcome is fixed. No one can change it.”
Here, a cruel smile curved his lips.
“I didn’t know whether it would be Song Yanrong or Song Huatang who would follow the Child of Destiny. Since I couldn’t tell them apart… I simply threw out the bait and set father against daughter, sister against brother — made them tear each other apart.”
“Whichever one survived the bloodbath to the end — that would be the one destined to follow the Child of Destiny.”
“Sss…”
Wang Xuanyang felt his scalp prickle. Every thread clicked into place, and he spoke in a voice tight with shock.
“Song Yanrong poisoning her own father, imprisoning and torturing her own brother… You’re saying that happened because you leaked the existence of the Blessed Land to her? And Song Hengjiang truly kept his silence, which drove that poisonous woman to a jealous frenzy — until she finally struck?”
A smile spread across Wang Zhidao’s face. He leaned back in his chair and spoke softly.
“The boy… can be taught.”