Chapter 158 – A Pact

“You are Gu Suihan?” The old man sat proudly inside the room upstairs and looked down at Gu Suihan.

“That is correct.”

Elder Yan slowly took a sip of his tea, then said flatly, “I heard from Yan Hua that you have requested to watch the entire process of making the spiritual weapon.”

“That is also correct.”

“In that case, this will cost you 50,000 spiritual stones,” said Elder Yan with a disdainful look in his eye as he casually glanced past the storage ring in Gu Suihan’s hand.

“Hoho,” chuckled Gu Suihan. He didn’t get angry and bowed slightly, “In that case, I shan’t make one today, then.”

“Humph12!” Elder Yan’s expression fell, and he had a threatening tone as he said, “The Swordsmith Court is not a place where you can come and go as you please! You don’t want to make one anymore? I squeezed time out from my busy schedule to do this, and you’re just going to walk away like that? You’d better have a good explanation for this!”

“A good explanation?” Gu Suihan slowly got up and didn’t hide the sneer on his face. “It’s good to have a brain, but…it’s too bad you don’t have one.”

“Ghostly Dimension Eyes of Heaven – Become Hun Refine Po!” Gu Suihan’s eyes suddenly flickered and gave off a brilliant red light that seemed like a black hole that could suck anything into it. Elder Yan ended up meeting his eyes without realizing what was actually happening to him.

“Read the soul!” Scenes from Elder Yan’s life flashed in front of Gu Suihan like a slideshow.

“How dare you!” The core within Elder Yan’s consciousness was like a snake that had been frightened. It now turned around to roar angrily as it surged mightily toward Gu Suihan.

“Stop right there!” Gu Suihan’s spirit inside his own consciousness instantly shifted like an ancient ferocious beast that had been rudely awakened. Its eyes opened slowly and the strength of its nearly boundless spiritual sense swept through the consciousness of Elder Yan.

Pfft! Elder Yan’s face paled as he stumbled backward and blood flowed out from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, as though he had been struck by lightning.

“I see.” Doing this was not easy for Gu Suihan too, so after he saw what he wanted, he immediately dispelled the technique and breathed a sigh of relief.

He moved his internal energies around his body to shake his clothes dry, then put his thoughts away as he slowly walked toward Elder Yan, who was now leaning weakly against his chair.

“You…you…you are the great Qingming!” Elder Yan didn’t know much, but he had heard that the major sects were on high alert as they tried to hunt down a powerful cultivator at Divine Soul named Qingming.

Gu Suihan was only at Foundation Establishment, yet he could unleash his spiritual sense. Didn’t that mean this young man was actually Qingming, the man whom the major sects desperately wanted to get rid of?

“What do you think?” Gu Suihan slowly sat down on the table in front of Elder Yan and poured himself a nice cup of tea.

“What…what do you want?” Elder Yan’s expression was glum, and he looked defeated.

“That’s what I want to ask you. I have no feud with you at all, so why do you want to make things so difficult for me?” Gu Suihan took a sip of hot tea, and less than a second later, Questioning Heaven was resting on the old man’s neck.

Elder Yan could feel the cold blade that was just next to his skin and shivered instinctively. He knew that if he didn’t give an answer, this insanely beautiful young man would kill him without hesitation. All cultivators who make it this far and live this long are lunatics.

If he died, then Gu Suihan could just make a run for it, and it would take the sect a while to discover the death of one of their elders. This was enough time for Gu Suihan to stroll out of the sect’s territory. Meanwhile, the old man’s death would only result in a fall of his clan’s status, and his assets would be taken over by other factions in the sect.

But more importantly, he didn’t want to die. He had just barely managed to gather his soul and form his core not too long ago, so he still had several good centuries of life ahead of him.

After all these thoughts flashed through his mind, Elder Yan quickly made the right decision. It was the right one for him, but it was possibly…the worst one for the Youthful Clarity Sect.

“I heard that the sect leader favors you greatly and has given you a lot of pills, herbs, and other resources, so…”

“So you got greedy?” Gu Suihan had a mocking smile on his face. “You think I’d believe that?”

Elder Yan looked at Gu Suihan in shock. He couldn’t understand why the young man would know what was going through his mind. But after he remembered what was hiding under this pretty boy’s exterior, his lips twitched nervously.

He paused for a long while and finally sighed like he had given up trying to fight back. “After the seven major sects fell for Qingming’s ploy, they lost most of their internal disciples, and many of these disciples were the best in the sect. That’s why it’s been a long time since anybody came to forge a weapon. The previously wealthy Swordsmith Court has eaten into its reserves already. It’s been a while since I received any extra money. Then you suddenly turned up with lots of spiritual stones, so…”

“So you got greedy?” Gu Suihan had a strange look on his face before refusing to accept the old man’s reason again. “That’s not the most important reason.”

“It’s one of them.” Elder Yan could sense that Gu Suihan’s gaze had intensified and couldn’t help but gulp. He braced himself and continued, “Also…I heard that you’re on pretty good terms with Shuang’er. That girl isn’t from this world, and she will eventually head for the Upper World. As her benefactor, you would be allowed to go with her. I was hoping to follow you when that happens and see if I can get out of this swamp.”

“And how were you so certain that I would agree to take you along after you’ve offended me like this?” Gu Suihan slowly picked up the slightly cold cup of tea, which helped hide the mysterious look in his eye.

Elder Yan’s lips twitched again. “I thought that since you were only at Foundation Establishment and hadn’t cultivated for long, you wouldn’t know much. So I decided to go on the offensive first by forcing you to swear by the Way, then do something nice for you that wouldn’t cost me anything, which was to make you a spiritual weapon.”

“What a great idea. The first bit was nonsense, and the last part is the truth,” chuckled Gu Suihan. “If my guess is correct, what you intended to do after forcing me to take an oath would be to catch hold of my weakness and become even greedier. You’d end up taking away everything I have.”

He flung the teacup onto the old man’s face covered with wrinkles, then gently patted Elder Yan’s cheeks with the flat side of his sword. “So…is my guess correct?”

Before the other party could respond, Gu Suihan went on, “I have to say that your mind is extremely active, and you’re pretty sensitive too. You actually noticed something unusual about this seemingly peaceful world of cultivators. Just a little lacking in judgment.”

Elder Yan wanted to protest, but when he looked at Gu Suihan’s demonic smile, he didn’t dare to utter a word.

“Alright then, time to swear, by the Way.” Gu Suihan glanced at the old man, who remained frozen in his chair, and said, “What, you need me to teach you how to do that?”

“N-no…” Elder Yan shuddered and quickly started to take the vilest oath he could conjure up.

But halfway through, Gu Suihan waved his hand to stop Elder Yan from continuing. “I can’t believe I forgot that you’ve already entered the Origin Core stage, so you’ve already made it past the part where you could be consumed by the demons in your heart. Swearing by the Way, is not going to have any consequences on you.”

“Then…then…what do you want?” Elder Yan didn’t feel the slightest bit relieved to hear these words and became even more uneasy instead. He looked at Gu Suihan and said in a trembling voice, “But I…I don’t have any other way…”

“I do,” said Gu Suihan with a pleasant smile. Elder Yan watched on in horror as Gu Suihan retrieved an old piece of animal hide that looked like it had been through a lot.

“This is the skin of an ancient magical beast, and there are runes on it,” explained Gu Suihan slowly when he saw the terrified look on Elder Yan’s face. He shot a wisp of spiritual sense out from his eyes. This wisp carried a faraway, desolate and absolutely terrifying presence of the laws of nature. Gu Suihan had a grim face as he used this wisp to etch words onto the hide.

“These are words formed by summarizing the laws of the Way of Heaven.” Gu Suihan was very patient, explaining things to the old man even as he carved all these words into the hide.

“In ancient times, this thing was called…a pact!”

Fifteen minutes later, Gu Suihan was done and was perspiring profusely. He held out the hide covered in strange and complicated-looking characters to Elder Yan.

“What…what do these characters mean?” Elder Yan took the hide from Gu Suihan with trembling hands. The anxiety he was feeling inside was threatening to explode right out of his head already.

“The gist is that you must not tell anybody about me, and you cannot make any attempt to get in my way. Otherwise, your physical body will explode, and your soul will belong to me,” said Gu Suihan nonchalantly before smearing a drop of his blood on the hide.

“I…I…” Elder Yan felt like crying now. He wanted to fight back, but when he remembered who Gu Suihan was supposed to be, he lost any courage to do so. After struggling with himself for a moment, he reluctantly smeared a drop of his blood onto the hide as well.

Woong! In that instant, they felt like the entire world was shaking. The hide unleashed an aura that seemed like it could hold up the sky, which slowly disappeared after some time.

At the same time, both of them felt like there was something new inside their hearts.

Immediately after Elder Yan had smeared the hide with his own blood, everything went dark, and he understood the words on the hide. The words read: Promise to become Gu Suihan’s slave forever, and that Gu Suihan can kill you at any time for any reason.

There were so many characters on the hide, but only this one sentence made sense.

The rest were written just to make it seem complicated.

Elder Yan felt like a country bumpkin who had gone to the big city with dreams, only to find that the big city was fraught with dangers and scheming people. The simple life he once disdained was actually better. But it was now too late for him to turn back.

“Actually, you don’t have to feel so upset,” said Gu Suihan as he looked at Elder Yan’s crestfallen expression. “Your core is of extremely poor quality, and there’s no hope for you to reach Nascent Change at all, so you’re just waiting to die. But with me around, that’s not necessarily the case anymore. For all you know, I could…help you get to Divine Soul.”

These flippant-sounding words resounded like thunder in Elder Yan’s heart. Indeed, since Gu Suihan was supposed to be a cultivator at Divine Soul, he definitely had a way to help him break the shackles that prevented him from advancing in his cultivation. And even if he couldn’t get all the way to Divine Soul, he was more than happy to settle for Nascent Change.

At that moment, Elder Yan’s eyes slowly lit up again. There was a faint hope in his eyes now.

TL/N: Oh look Sottie, just like you! ↩️

ED/N: Look at you, bullying poor ol’ Sottie =( ↩️