Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 155

Chapter 155 – I…Am Qingming

“The inter-sect exchange?” Gu Suihan slowly chewed on these somewhat familiar-sounding words. There was a glimmer in his eyes, and a faint smile appeared on his fair and flawless face.

“Young master, your herbal bath is ready,” Taohua stuck her head out and called out to Gu Suihan, who was sitting in the front yard.

“Got it,” said Gu Suihan before popping a spiritual fruit into his mouth and walking back into the house.

After Taohua and Lihua had left the bathroom, Gu Suihan gently tapped the side of the tub and said quietly, “Come on out. This thing is useless to me, so you can have it.”

Immediately after he said that a rustling noise came from the shelf where his clothes were placed. A black shadow flew into the tub like a flash of lightning.

“If you hadn’t helped out that day, Wang Changsheng wouldn’t have died. The personality I created wouldn’t have been so traumatized, and his mental resilience wouldn’t have been so poor, which means I wouldn’t have had the chance to awaken my consciousness so easily. You can take this as your reward,” said Gu Suihan as he rested lazily inside the tub and patted the head of the snake head that popped up from inside the water.

Before this, he had tried time and again to break the seal around his consciousness and had given his created personality a tremendous amount of pressure, but he was always missing that last bit of energy to break through. In the end, it was the Gold Striped Black Killer Snake that seized this chance to kill Wang Changsheng, which resulted in inner turmoil within the created personality’s mind and became the last straw on the camel’s back. He wouldn’t have awakened his consciousness so quickly if that hadn’t happened.

The little snake had a smug look in its eyes as it responded with a happy hiss. It then dived back into the waters to quickly absorb all the energy that the herbal bath contained.

“The Buddhist Sect. So, this sect really exists in this world?” Gu Suihan gazed toward the roof with a distant look in his eyes as thoughts ran through his mind.

This world was very small. It was so small that it couldn’t hold up if a cultivator at the Immortal stage descended upon it. The seven major sects sounded like they were very powerful, but they weren’t worth much to Gu Suihan. He already had his eye on the Seven Kill Sect from a long time ago. All the clues he had gathered over the past few years had so much connection to the Seven Kill Sect. Unfortunately, he had gathered this information a little too late. Otherwise, he wouldn’t end up having to infiltrate the Youthful Clarity Sect and make alternate plans.

“This inter-sect exchange is definitely going to happen as planned because that’s the best way the will of this world will be able to kill or at least chase me away. It’s not something that these pathetic cultivators can do,” thought Gu Suihan as his eyes slowly lit up.

Unfortunately for him, his original plans to just hibernate and plan within the Youthful Clarity Sect had not worked out. This sect actually had a cultivator at Half Step to Divine Soul and had detected the presence of a Divine Soul cultivator within the personality he had created. And because of that, he had become the center of attention within the sect.

“Since you want to win, then…I’ll let you win.”

Gu Suihan’s gaze was like a hole that could bore through the heavens and the earth, like a sharp tip of a sword that could pierce through anything.

“Pui! Pui! Pui!” The Huangquan Evil Ghost spat out several mouthfuls of sand and glared fiercely at the extremely sharp and high sword-like mountain in the distance. It made it past the Youthful Clarity Sect’s protective formation like it was nothing more than ordinary air, and flew toward where Gu Suihan stayed within the mountain.

It avoided all the night patrolling disciples as well as other watchful presences hiding in the shadows before finally making it to Gu Suihan’s little courtyard.

“Come in.” A very soft voice resounded in its ear via telepathy even before it could catch its breath.

“You’ve awakened your consciousness?” The Huangquan Evil Ghost’s eyes widened and looked a little excited as it slipped through a crack and appeared before Gu Suihan.

“If not?” Gu Suihan chuckled. He scanned the ghost, then frowned slightly as he said, “It looks like you didn’t heed my advice.”

“I didn’t want to do that either. But all their attention was focused on you at that time, and I was afraid that your identity would be exposed, so I had no choice but to take the risk and distract them.” The ghost’s face fell, and he was a little upset as he said, “You have no idea how intensely those pathetic ants were staring at you all the time. They looked like they might swallow you whole or something. If I hadn’t done something, they might have gone ahead and searched your soul.”

“You’re right. My plan did have some loopholes.” Gu Suihan nodded slightly and thereby admitted that he now owed the ghost a favor. “Once all of this is over, I’ll take you to the Upper World. But you must have the Upper World’s space constellation map first.”

“I’m not a creature of this world, which is why I’m being pressured and rejected by the will of this world. Every soul born within a particular world will have the space mark of the will of that world, so you don’t have to worry about that.” The ghost was pleased that it had finally gotten confirmation that the powerful Gu Suihan was going to help it get back to the Upper World.

“Space mark?” Gu Suihan’s wandering gaze suddenly paused. He turned his attention to his spirit and started searching it very carefully.

He had never heard of this thing before. Back then, Earth had already been subconsciously shielded by the Way of Heaven, so countless things that used to exist were no longer passed down or taught and died out naturally. There were no immortals and definitely nobody who could shatter and travel through spaces. There was no way he could have heard about this unique seal that each creature had depending on which world, dimension or space they came from.

“Found it!” Gu Suihan had a sinister look in his eyes as he stared at the inconspicuous little spot among the thousands of sparkles within his spirit.

“I was still so perplexed about how to return. But as long as you’re around, I’ll get there sooner or later and expose who you really are,” he mumbled to himself. He used his spiritual sense to surround that little spot and made sure to seal it really well in the deepest part of his spirit.

“What do we do now?” asked the ghost after it noticed that Gu Suihan had remained silent for a long time.

“One year later, something called the inter-sect exchange will happen,” said Gu Suihan calmly.

The ghost blinked in surprise before a sinister smile spread across its face. “Inter-sect exchange? Ooh…I can’t wait to exchange a move or two with these people.”

“We’ll work separately when it happens.” Gu Suihan gently rapped the bathtub and said slowly, “In the past, they’d just go through the motion and not care about it after that. But this time is different. Besides the fact that all the sects have suffered severe damages after losing so many of their best inside the secret realm, the Seven Kill Sect is not going to sit around and do nothing either. The other sects plotted against them once, so they would want to take revenge on the Ethereal Court and their allies. Besides, there’s also news that Qingming is still alive. Given all that, the sect leaders will definitely join hands to try and stop or at least appease the wrath of the sect leader of the Seven Kill Sect, You Hantian.”

“You Hantian?” mumbled the ghost, as it had thought of something.

Gu Suihan’s gaze flickered as he noticed the ghost’s reaction to that name, but he couldn’t be bothered to ask and continued speaking, “When the time comes, I’ll head for the Seven Kill Sect, while you will go to the empty headquarters of each sect. I don’t think I need to tell you what you need to do.”

“That’s…a good plan. But are you able to guarantee that despite not showing yourself and proving that Qingming is still alive, these other sects would head toward the Seven Kill Sect without thinking twice?” The ghost wasn’t stupid either. It just had to go through how the plan would work out in its mind, and it would notice the loopholes in the plan.

“Until then, I…will be Qingming,” said Gu Suihan with a faint smile. The ghost stared back at him in shock.

“Qingming was a cultivator of ghosts…” responded the ghost instinctively, but it shut its mouth again when it remembered the soaring murderous qi that Gu Suihan commanded.

“By the time they reach that stage, even if they still have their doubts, the situation will not afford them any time to think.” A faint bloody glow appeared in Gu Suihan’s eyes, and the red spider lily between his brows became prettier and more mesmerizing.

Meanwhile, the outermost layer of the old-fashioned ring around one of Gu Suihan’s fingers slowly crumbled away to reveal the brilliant runes that originally swirled around it.

“Do you know what this is?” He flicked his wrist and retrieved a light purple round rock that emanated a curious aura.

This was something he had found in the storage ring of a cultivator he had killed inside the secret realm. He thought it was a good time to ask the ghost.

“SSS!” Before the ghost could say anything, the Gold Striped Black Killer Snake that had been hiding underwater all this time seemed to have gotten very worked up and flew out of the water, hissing excitedly as it stared at the rock in Gu Suihan’s hand. But the uncontrollable trembling of its body also showed how afraid it was.

“So, it’s really the egg of a magical beast?” Gu Suihan raised an eyebrow and looked in surprise at the plain, smooth rock in his palm.

The ghost observed the rock carefully and shook its head. “I don’t know what it is either. The universe is too great, and there are too many things we don’t know. Perhaps it is the egg of some monster out there. Based on how excited this fellow is, it’s probably a dragon sort of magical beast.”

“Forget it then. You can have it.” Gu Suihan carelessly flung the rock at the Gold Striped Black Killer Snake. The snake hissed even more excitedly. It disregarded the difference between itself and the egg and swallowed it whole. It then coiled itself on the floor and concealed its presence completely as though it were dead.

“Keep it properly. And don’t let the girls see you,” said Gu Suihan to the ghost as he waved it away, then put on his clothes and walked out of the bathroom.

“I can’t believe you didn’t choke to death on it,” spat the ghost nastily at the snake. It pulled the sleeping snake into its arms, then slowly floated out of the window like it was merely water.