Chapter 111 – All These Wily Old Foxes

“Then again, I don’t know if that secret key really exists or if the legacy that dead fellow mentioned is real.” Gu Suihan now focused his attention on looking for the secret key.

“Could it still be up there after all?”

Gu Suihan looked up at the cave roof. There was a dim glow in the indentions left behind from where the Spirit Devouring Worm once hid. The cave was dark and humid, which made this dim glow seem especially bright.

It was getting a little chilly in the cave. Gu Suihan was severely injured. The three sword moves he had made earlier seemed like they had not taken much effort, but actually, those moves had consumed the energy from his spiritual sense, hun and po. It wasn’t his spiritual energy. It was his soul that had attacked the worm’s weak soul. That was how he managed to kill that creature. Otherwise, if that creature managed to touch him, he would not have been able to do anything about it.

It took a lot of effort, but he shot a beam of spiritual energy at the glowing part of the roof, and he made that piece of rock land neatly in front of him.

He used his palm as a knife to gently slice away the excess rock to reveal a reddish gold item embedded inside that gleamed prettily.

“It seriously exists?” Gu Suihan looked at the intricately designed crescent-shaped object that was no larger than his palm and blinked in surprise.

“Damn you!” Gu Suihan was an intelligent man who had survived for more than a thousand years. Nothing escaped his eye. He immediately realised what had happened and cursed the bones of the cultivator who had left that dying message behind.

What really happened was actually quite simple. This cultivator probably discovered the formation at the cave entrance and thought that it was a chance to advance his cultivation. So, he put in a lot of effort into breaking most of the Chilly Soul and Icy Po formation, then used some way to get further in.

Perhaps there was something on this platform that had attracted him, making him look around excitedly and then accidentally awakening the Spirit Devouring Worm that had been sleeping here for a long time. He was taken by surprise, and the worm began eating him up entirely. At that moment, the only thing he could do was to use his blood as ink and scribble these last words down, making sure to leave a death trap for the next person who found this place.

There’s an old phrase that says that people tend to try and be a good person when they know they’re about to die. Gu Suihan called bullshit on that. This cultivator and the now-dead Zhou Xingwen were both people who tried to bring others down with them even when they were about to die.

“Fuck,” spat Gu Suihan in pain before swallowing more pills. After he had recovered some of his waning spiritual energy, he stood up to keep the crescent-shaped secret key and walked toward the rotting items that the dead cultivator had left behind.

Since the Spirit Devouring Worm had consumed that fellow, it meant that anything he got from the cave, like a spiritual weapon, would have been consumed as well. That would explain why the entire cave had nothing else but those bones and some rotten clothes.

If he wanted to find any clues, the only way was to look through the dead man’s storage ring.

“A disciple’s token?” Gu Suihan noticed an ancient-looking token made from high-quality material, so he took a closer look and then threw it aside. This fellow had been a War Demon Sect disciple.

There was a jade slip with a cultivation technique that most people would have fought tooth and nail over, but Gu Suihan merely glanced at it and then threw it aside as well. He had a million and one technique memorised.

“Found it.” Gu Suihan’s face lit up slightly as he pulled out something that resembled a piece of animal hide. Tiny words were written on it.

“Just like what I expected. Too bad about those two spiritual weapons,” muttered Gu Suihan to himself after a while. He sprayed spiritual energy from his palm and turned the hide to powder.

His guess had been right. That War Demon Sect disciple had managed to get in here somehow, thinking it was a golden opportunity, only for it to turn out to be a death trap. The Spirit Devouring Worm had also consumed the spiritual weapon he had gotten, so Gu Suihan wasn’t able to gain anything from this cave at all.

“This domain that has been disguising as a secret realm seems to have been discovered a long time ago. The Ethereal Court has been in charge of it, so that’s probably why nobody has ever heard about it. But why did a War Demon Sect disciple appear here? Unless…”

Gu Suihan’s gaze flickered as he thought of a possibility. The strange blood red symbol in his pupils moved silently as if it contained the entire galaxy within.

“The problem now is, how am I supposed to know who has the keys?” Gu Suihan slowly rubbed a finger against the warm crescent-shaped secret key as he sprayed spiritual energy from his other palm, turning the cave into a wasteland. Once he had wiped out all traces of himself, he marched off.

“Mother, are you really going to be so heartless?” Mo Yuluo’s face was pale as she lay weakly next to a pond, sniffling sadly while murmuring to herself.

“Falling in love and all that nonsense is transient, so why get entangled at all? I used to have such feelings for your father, but he ended up abandoning me. How could you dream of attaining the Way when you are distracted by all these worldly emotions? It is but a dream.”

Inside Mo Yuluo’s consciousness, a blurry figure spoke flatly to her. The voice seemed indifferent, but it also carried tiredness, as if it had gone through many vicissitudes.

Mo Yuluo was like a helpless little deer, and her expression was dazed as she listened to her mother’s heartless words. Her body shook when she heard the mention of her father, and her eyes slowly became more focused again. She murmured, “I just want to know when you started taking notice of Gu Suihan and what’s going on with the joined hearts fruit.”

“I took note of him ever since I read the comments Disciplinarian Zhang had of him.” The blurry figure that was actually the split soul of Yun Lianyi seemed rather surprised that, at this point, her daughter was asking about someone unrelated to her current situation. But she replied patiently anyway.

“He’s very much like your father. Ruthless, heartless and vicious. But unlike your father, he doesn’t get himself entangled in any relationship. In fact, as long as you’re a threat to him, it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female – he’ll exact revenge on you in the most vicious way possible.”

“Could it be…” Mo Yuluo stared in shock at her mother’s look of yearning and admiration and couldn’t help but think of a possibility. A possibility that was nearly impossible.

“You’re overthinking this.” Yun Lianyi threw her daughter a displeased glance. “I just think of your father when I see him, that’s all.”

Mo Yuluo couldn’t stand it anymore. “My father is You Hantian, not the one you love, Mo Yunyu,” she yelled through her tears.

Yun Lianyi sighed sadly, disregarding Mo Yuluo’s exclamation as she went on, “After I got this pair of joined hearts fruit, I had been holding onto them dearly until I found out about your disagreement with Gu Suihan as well as what you told me about him being a cultivator who has restarted his cultivation journey after taking over another person’s body.”

“In that instant, I suddenly thought of using you to try and control him, then wiping out your consciousness and taking over your body. That way, the effect of the joined hearts fruit would remain but have no hold over me. Then, I would try to get some secrets out of him.”

“When I told you about having to overcome the hurdle of falling in love, I was hoping that doing so would lead you to develop some feelings for him and eventually get Gu Suihan to consume the fruit. Unfortunately, I did this in too much of a hurry, and you ended up realising what was going on.”

Yun Lianyi seemed rather disappointed at this juncture.

“Hurhur,” Mo Yuluo laughed self-deprecatingly before falling completely silent as she stared blankly at the slightly translucent face with sweet and gentle features in front of her. Ordinary people thought that the saddest thing in the world was to be unable to think or make decisions for themselves, while cultivators went after a life that was free of worldly emotions.

But when it came to real life, how many could have control over their own lives? And how many could really be free of emotions? Yun Lianyi turned out to be able to be truly heartless to her own biological daughter.

As the saying goes, even the ferocious tigress would not eat her cubs, so it was assumed that all mothers loved their children dearly. But what happens when the tigress is starving?

“I’ve answered all your questions. That will make it a little easier to wipe out your consciousness.” Yun Lianyi suddenly had an indifferent look in her pretty eyes. The tinge of gentleness and motherly love she had earlier was gone.

“Ha. We were meant to be emotionless beings, but we have been put inside emotional bodies,” murmured Mo Yuluo sadly before she gave up resisting.

“Soul Splitting Secret Technique, Transfer of the Bloodline.” Yun Lianyi suddenly leapt up and pounced toward Mo Yuluo’s flickering soul within her consciousness.

“Mo Yuluo?” Just then, a tall figure walked toward Mo Yuluo, his emotionless face raising an eyebrow in surprise when he noticed the pretty face next to the pond.

It was Gu Suihan.

“The poor child.” Gu Suihan sat down rather curiously next to the exhausted-looking young woman dressed in chiffon robes and observed her condition closely. He clearly did not intend to help her at all.

He waved his right hand over the empty area next to him. A small table, a teapot and teacups appeared. Fragrant steam rose from the teapot and swirled in the air.

Gu Suihan poured two cups of tea out. He pushed one to the side where Mo Yuluo was, then picked up the other cup and drank its contents down noisily.