Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 144

“Where are you going?” asked the Huangquan Evil Ghost via telepathy, confusion filling his voice, as it watched Gu Suihan walk toward the city gates like an ordinary human who wasn’t capable of flying or anything like that.

“Before entering the secret realm, I did something that could shake up the entire world of cultivation. I want to check out what the current situation is so that we don’t end up being unprepared and getting killed instead.” Gu Suihan walked on without turning back, concealing his presence as he carried Shuang’er into the city like he was an ordinary young master.

“And what about me?” The Huangquan Evil Ghost hid in a shadow and shuddered as it saw how sunny it was. It hadn’t reached a point where it could move in the sun yet.

“Find some ordinary humans, gobble their souls up, then hide. Whenever you can, terrorize the people but do not go around massacring them. Just do enough to create a commotion.”

Gu Suihan glanced at the soldiers guarding the city gate and set up an illusionary formation. Then he reached for their heads with his pretty, slim, fair hands.

“Gobble the soul and take their memories!” That was the fastest way of gaining information about the city.

“Sailing Wind Martial Arts Academy…Fearsome Sword Martial Arts Academy…”

Gu Suihan flung aside the soldiers who were bleeding from every orifice and were no longer breathing, then used a bit of qi to shake off the bloodstains on his hands. There was a tinge of redness in his eyes as he smirked and walked toward the two martial arts academies.

“shit!” The Huangquan Evil Ghost spat, then angrily turned itself into a shadow as it entered one of the bodies of the soldiers that Gu Suihan just killed.

Gu Suihan walked as quickly as the wind and went around every bend unnoticed. In no time, he found himself standing in front of the entrance to a martial arts academy that took up a fairly large space.

“Oh my, my! Which family does this young master here hail from?”

“Hello, sir! Are you here to learn martial arts from the Sailing Wind Martial Arts Academy?”

Gu Suihan glanced at the two who just spoke to him, then looked up at the gigantic signboard with an ornate golden border and the two words “Sailing Wind” engraved in bold strokes. He did not stop to speak to them, walking up the steps briskly and heading for the inside of the academy.

A gentle wind made the soft hair covering the sides of his face fly a little, revealing those features that would make anyone jealous.

“Two pieces of trash.” Gu Suihan sauntered past the two men with the wind in his step.

Thud! The two men standing guard outside the academy crashed to the ground like marionettes as their lives were sucked out of their bodies. Dust flew up as they landed, covering their dim and empty gazes.

Gu Suihan’s spiritual sense was like a venomous snake on the lookout for prey as it quietly covered the entirety of the academy.

“It’s here.” His unfeeling gaze turned toward the yard.

“Who are you?” A middle-aged man dressed suitably for martial arts training seemed to sense danger, so he flexed his muscular arms and marched out of the yard.

His eyes widened as he stared at the seemingly frail and feminine-looking young man in front of him unblinkingly, while the qi and energy flowed out of him uncontrollably. He reached out and tried to fight the force sapping his body of life, but the pain he felt inside drowned out the tiny bit of consciousness he had left.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Like exploding watermelons, the heads of the ten odd martial artists who had come running when they heard the voice of their senior suddenly exploded. White mush and blood splattered everywhere.

“The Seven Kill Sect couldn’t hold up after all. And the War Demon Sect was in cahoots with the Ethereal Court after all. The world of cultivation has finally descended into chaos,” murmured Gu Suihan as he walked into a smaller room next to the main hall, found a secret door to another room, and took all the spiritual stones, precious minerals, and herbs they stored inside, then left without looking back.

He was headed to the other martial arts academy.

As one of the more famous academies in the capital, it was common for many people to visit the academy. They were here to either visit a well-known martial artist, challenge someone to a fight, or just learn a few moves.

The news about how the Sailing Wind Martial Arts Academy had turned into nothing but a pile of dead bodies spread through the city like wildfire.

People crowded in fear in front of the academy and peeked in through the door to see a sight that looked like it was straight from hell. Many started whispering among themselves in hope of getting more inside information.

But before the government officials could send people to investigate what had happened, the news that another martial arts academy had just suffered the same fate spread through the city as well.

Everyone who heard about it talked among themselves in horror and they were filled with uneasiness.

This was the capital city after all, yet something so blatantly cruel had happened in broad daylight under their noses. This not only caused panic among the commoners but it also made everyone in the palace become fearful.

Meanwhile, Gu Suihan stood next to a well and smiled faintly as he crushed a bright red pill to powder and let it fall into the well. “Good luck to all of you.”

He sent his spiritual sense out and summoned the Huangquan Evil Ghost.

“What do we do now?” asked the ghost in a deep voice as it looked at the increasingly frantic people in the city.

“We wait.”

“We wait?”

“We wait for the real chaos to settle in,” said Gu Suihan as he randomly tossed the unconscious Shuang’er to one side, shut his eyes, and did not say anymore.

The ghost was rather annoyed by how cryptic Gu Suihan was. But he looked at the girl who had been sleeping throughout all of this and asked curiously, “Who exactly is this little girl?”

“I have no idea, but I think she has something to do with the Upper World.” Gu Suihan glanced at Shuang’er with a flicker in his gaze, as though he was thinking about something.

“The Upper World?” repeated the ghost through gnashed teeth as it clawed at the things around it, scratching everything in the way.

Gu Suihan looked at it and asked curiously, “What’s the political system like in the Upper World?”

“As long as that tyrant is around, what sort of system do you expect?” The ghost suddenly seemed angry enough to eat someone. “He terrorizes everyone. If anybody disobeys or protests, that person is dead meat, including all his descendants and extended family.”

“What’s going on with these sects then? I found out that sects like the Seven Kill Sect had come down from the Upper World,” said Gu Suihan slowly.

“These sects?” The ghost snorted and didn’t bother to hide the sheer disdain on its face. But when it spotted Gu Suihan’s indifferent gaze, it couldn’t help but try to look less disdainful. “These sects are more like a bunch of animals that the Qin kingdom rears. If the tyrant didn’t need them to conquer new lands or didn’t need them as cannon fodder, he would have turned the families of these sects to ashes a long time ago.”

“Oh? So, why do you have such an expression on your face?” Gu Suihan raised an eyebrow.

“That’s because even though these influential families and sects are so meek and afraid when they face that tyrant, they oppress the wandering cultivators even more.” The ghost’s ugly face was twisted in anger.

“Oh?”

The ghost spoke with pain in its voice and its yellow-brown pupils kept constricting, showing the deep hatred within its heart. “Under the rule of the Qin kingdom, if the kingdom needs them, all cultivators must comply with the kingdom’s demands. Conquering new lands requires a huge number of cultivators to lead the way. In order to escape the edict, the sects capture wandering cultivators, erase their memories, then use these wandering cultivators to replace them in this mission that clearly leads to death.”

“That’s a pretty good workaround. The kingdom just needs people who are willing to die in battle anyway. Who actually forms these troops isn’t important.” Gu Suihan nodded with some admiration and looked like he agreed with doing things this way.

“Humph!” The ghost snorted angrily when it heard Gu Suihan complimenting the behavior of the sects.

At the same time, the ghost actually agreed with this method as well. But it only agreed with the concept. If it was called to be cannon fodder, there was no way it was going to agree to that. Nobody would.

If humans, or rather, any living thing with sentience were to face a situation where their own benefits or lives were at stake, they would use a strength that they never realized existed in them to fight back.

But for everyone watching from the sides, they could remain indifferent and logical.

Even so, there were still countless saints and pretentious people who enjoyed using bullshit like ethics, conscience, and other such vomit-inducing terms to rally people together and make them go against their survival instincts.

All living things were reasonable only after they were certain that they were in a good and safe situation. Only then would they have the capacity to argue or follow all this garbage about good and evil.

“Hypocrisy, pretense, scheming, greed, lust, desire – these are all the evil roots of living things. Humans are a product of all these things merged together,” thought Gu Suihan silently. But he felt no emotion at all. It had been a long time since he saw himself as human. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have persisted in cultivating the Extreme Ra-Asu Breach back then despite knowing the threats and possible problems that came with doing so.

The soul is complete, the body flawless. The rules like clothes, the imagery turned into energy.

Cutting ties with the seven relationships of mankind, severing the six desires. The hun and po roam freely, leaving their constraints.

That was a portrayal of what a cultivator ought to be. Regardless of whether it was a philosophy to turn the Way into the only thing you cared about, or to rise above worldly desires and be unaffected emotionally, or to be heartless and removed from the world – all these different paths, the one thing that all cultivators were pursuing were basically to fulfill the obsession in their hearts. This obsession was what was called the Heart for the Way. The True Self.

Some wanted to live freely, others hoped to live forever. Some wanted to become the most powerful, some wanted to travel through space.

The manifestation was different, but they all stemmed from the same idea.

“Have you…heard of heaven…before?” said Gu Suihan slowly as he looked emotionlessly at the Huangquan Evil Ghost. The frosty glint in his eyes made the ghost shudder as a chill ran through its entire body.