Chapter 1571: So What If I Tear Down the Bridge After Crossing the River?

Inside the Song imperial palace, on a brocade couch, a naked man and woman were in the middle of their pleasure.

The woman, in a thoroughly indecent state, thought her eyes had deceived her. She looked again and discovered that a palace maid truly was standing before the couch, watching them with an expressionless face.

"Ah!"

Aque cried out in fright and hurriedly covered her breasts with both arms.

Wu Gongling, who had been exerting himself vigorously, turned his head and saw someone there. He immediately roared, "How dare—"

He got only halfway through before terror struck him. He rolled aside in panic, dragged the quilt over himself, and stared as though he had seen a ghost.

"Hui... Hui Qingping!"

His mouth opened as he tried to shout for guards.

Hui Qingping, dressed as a palace maid, flicked one finger.

Wu Gongling immediately went limp. He no longer had the strength to raise his voice. Terrified, he gasped weakly, "Pingping, listen to my explanation. Back then I didn't want to do that either. I had no choice. I was forced!"

Aque had already curled herself into one corner.

Hui Qingping stretched out a hand.

Wu Gongling's sword flew from its sheath and landed in her grasp.

She flicked the quilt away with the sword tip and followed with another slash.

"Mmgh..."

Wu Gongling gave a muffled groan of agony and collapsed onto the couch, both hands clutching between his legs as blood poured out beneath him.

Hui Qingping stepped onto the brocade couch and struck again.

Blood sprayed.

One sword after another.

She hacked off one of Wu Gongling's hands, then the other.

She severed one leg, then the other.

Afterward, another thrust gouged out his tongue.

More vicious still, she drove an index finger directly into one of his eye sockets and dug out his left eye, then slowly gouged out the right.

When she finally finished, Hui Qingping was panting heavily.

Not from exhaustion.

It was the result of venting years of hatred in a frenzy.

She truly wanted to hack Wu Gongling into minced flesh.

Before coming, however, Niu Youdao had given explicit instructions.

He had already laid down a rule: from now on, Maolu Villa was not to casually kill or slaughter people of the secular world. Matters of the secular world were to be resolved by secular people themselves.

From Niu Youdao's meaning, it seemed he intended to push for the cultivation world and the secular world to sever their ties completely.

Later, Hui Qingping had guaranteed to Niu Youdao that she would not kill Wu Gongling, but she insisted on crippling him to vent the hatred in her heart.

Niu Youdao knew she would never get past this knot in her heart unless she avenged herself. He agreed and arranged people to help her enter the Song imperial palace through Zi Pingxiu's side.

Without such arrangements, Hui Qingping would never have been able to get close to Wu Gongling, much less enter the Song imperial palace and attack him.

After stepping down from the couch, Hui Qingping turned her cold gaze toward Aque.

She wanted to kill this bitch too.

But before coming, she had promised Niu Youdao she would no longer indiscriminately kill people of the secular world.

She could only suppress the impulse.

She tossed the sword aside and left.

Aque had no idea she had just escaped disaster.

Both hands covered her face as she shivered uncontrollably.

Under circumstances like these, when had she ever witnessed such a bloody and brutal scene?

Wu Gongling had long since fainted from the pain.

It did not take long for the Song imperial palace to descend into chaos.

Court ministers soon arrived one after another.

When they saw Wu Gongling, crippled beyond any possibility of further crippling, being treated by physicians, all were shocked.

They spent the entire night discussing countermeasures.

The cultivators of Song's Three Great Sects were enraged as well and launched a thorough investigation into what had happened.

The next day, both Song and Han received notices from Yan's envoys.

The attitude was extraordinarily forceful.

The two states were ordered to surrender to Yan.

...

Lü Wushuang appeared in the doorway of Feng Guan'er's room.

Seeing Feng Guan'er packing a bundle, she asked, "Where are you going?"

Feng Guan'er felt nothing but desolation in her heart.

She had learned certain things that were difficult to face.

Without looking up, she continued packing. "Don't worry. I won't bother the two of you again."

Lü Wushuang said indifferently, "You can leave if you want, but wait until Yuan Gang comes back."

"Otherwise, if he returns and finds you gone, I won't be able to explain it to him. With that damned temper of his, he'll certainly assume I forced you away. There's no way I could make him understand."

Feng Guan'er lifted her bundle and walked over. "No one forced me. Please move aside."

Lü Wushuang blocked the doorway.

"I forgot to tell you. Yan is marching west now, and its advance is like splitting bamboo. Jin's army is collapsing like a landslide. In the end, surrender is very likely."

"After Luo Zhao surrenders, how do you think I should deal with him?"

"You made me unhappy today. Tomorrow I can send Shang Chaozong a message. Once Luo Zhao is captured, I'll have him executed by lingchi."

Feng Guan'er bit her lip and stared at Lü Wushuang.

"You can choose Luo Zhao's death, or you can choose to become my maid. Decide for yourself."

Lü Wushuang left those words behind and turned away.

At the same time, inside a waterside pavilion at Maolu Villa, Ghost Mother Wu Xuejun opened a black cloth sack and poured several dead crows onto the table.

"After Wu Chang brought us under his control, this is what he was doing at Xianyin Mountain. These should be Crow Generals, right?"

Niu Youdao stared at them for a while.

"Mm. They are Crow Generals, but they haven't been refined for long enough. They hadn't completely transformed into yin creatures yet. Otherwise, after death they would have vanished into smoke and wouldn't have left physical bodies behind."

Ghost Mother said, "I don't understand what happened either. All these crows suddenly started smoking and then dropped dead at the same time."

Niu Youdao said, "Because Wu Chang died. The heroic souls attached to these crows departed into the unseen along with him."

Ghost Mother looked thoughtful. "So that's how it was."

Yun Ji, standing to one side, asked, "Hei Shi ran over there, didn't make things difficult for you, and simply gave all of you your freedom back?"

Ghost Mother nodded. "Yes. He withdrew the people guarding us directly and didn't trouble us."

"Oh, right. After Hei Shi arrived, he seemed to be searching for something. He mobilized people and turned the place over again and again for a long time. In the end he appeared to find what he wanted before leaving. I don't know what he was looking for."

Niu Youdao smiled faintly. "Something unimportant. Looks like that fellow truly did understand Wu Chang well enough. He actually found it."

Yun Ji froze. "Don't tell me it was the Heaven-Swallowing Ring you told him to find back at Qiyun Sect?"

Niu Youdao said, "Most likely."

Yun Ji looked suspicious. "Unimportant? Then why did you tell him to find it?"

Niu Youdao said, "At the time, I already knew the final confrontation with Wu Chang was near."

"If Wu Chang died, and the remnants of his forces remained terrified and hid forever, they would become trouble later."

"The Heaven-Swallowing Ring was only an excuse."

"I gave them a road of retreat so they would dare come out into the open with peace of mind."

"Hei Shi is still watching the situation now. Once he sees that the greater momentum can't be reversed, he'll contact us on his own initiative."

Yun Ji was speechless.

She discovered that this man's planning truly did reach absurdly far ahead.

The slightest contact with him and he had already thrown out another scheme.

There was no guarding against it.

At that moment, Duan Hu arrived and presented a confidential message.

"Master Dao, Shao Pingbo took poison and killed himself."

Niu Youdao froze.

He took the letter and read it.

Afterward, he remained silent for quite a while before giving a bitter smile and shaking his head.

"There really are this many people in the world who can't think things through."

"Wu Chang kills himself. This one kills himself too."

"Why go that far?"

Yun Ji reached out and took the letter from him.

After reading it, she glanced at Niu Youdao. "Does this count as you forcing him to death?"

Niu Youdao said, "I never intended to kill him."

"But after all the things he did, and after acting with such viciousness, I couldn't let him walk away as though nothing had happened. I was always going to punish him enough to blunt that edge of his."

"Monkey's Su Zhao died because of him as well. You know Monkey's hatred of evil. I'm afraid Monkey might not have let him go in the end."

"So saying I forced him to death isn't entirely wrong."

"That man was proud by nature. I worried before that he wouldn't be willing to endure humiliation."

"To tell the truth, if he had lived, who knows what trouble he might have stirred up later. His methods were too vicious. Whether he could swallow that resentment and whether he would be willing to live peacefully with my people—I had no confidence in either."

"So I hadn't decided whether I should keep him alive."

"I gave him a chance to live. Unfortunately, he himself couldn't think past it."

"So be it."

"He killed himself and died on Jin's side. His Highness no longer needs to be placed in a difficult position, and Shao Dengyun's side can barely be said to have an explanation."

"If Shao Dengyun can't accept it and wants to settle accounts, let Shao Dengyun come find me."

His fingers tapped lightly against the sword hilt beneath his hand.

Apparently still not entirely reassured, he turned and said, "Duan Hu, arrange for someone to confirm it. Confirm whether he's truly dead."

"Alive, I want to see the man. Dead, I want to see the corpse."

"Don't let him fake his death and slip away."

"If he's feigning death, then he clearly hasn't accepted defeat. He may become future trouble."

Duan Hu nodded. "All right. I'll arrange it now."

With that, he left quickly.

Niu Youdao rose to his feet.

"The various sects are probably going mad trying to find Gong Lince and the others."

"Some matters can begin now."

"Notify me when Hongniang returns."

Several days later, news arrived from the Sacred Realm.

Yuan Gang and Guan Fangyi also returned one after another.

Both brought back drawings.

Niu Youdao only needed one look at the shapes of the recesses atop the pyramids to know they had indeed found them.

Afterward, he had the group of Nascent Soul experts under soft detention summoned to the main council hall.

Quite a few silver needles had been inserted into each of them, sealing their cultivation.

When Niu Youdao appeared in the doorway, every gaze turned toward him at once.

Niu Youdao smiled. "Your complexions look good. Seems everyone's injuries have mostly recovered."

He walked toward the seat of honor.

Seeing Zhong Guzi present, he decided it would be improper to sit there.

Forget it.

He remained standing instead.

Zhong Guzi said heavily, "You've finally decided to show yourself."

"Should I say you've deceived your master and betrayed your ancestors, or should I praise you for being ruthless enough?"

Niu Youdao said, "Master is thinking too much. This has only been a temporary inconvenience."

Xi Haitang snapped angrily, "Niu Youdao, you're tearing down the bridge after crossing the river!"

Niu Youdao's cold gaze swept toward him.

"So what if I am?"

"Do you want to live or do you want to die?"

"If you don't want to live, I'll grant your wish right now!"

"You..."

Xi Haitang's expression twitched.

Of course he wanted to live.

He wanted to answer back, but Niu Youdao looked as though he might draw his sword and kill him on the spot.

A wise man did not court immediate loss.

Xi Haitang could only endure it.

The others swallowed the words that had been sitting in their throats as well.

They had held them in for a long time and badly wanted to spit them out, but now they were forced to keep them there.

Niu Youdao paced through the middle of the hall with his sword planted before him.

"Temper. Anger. Dissatisfaction. All allowed."

"But none of you are fools."

"You should understand that if I wanted to kill you, there was no need to wait until now."

"I invited all of you here to solve a problem, not to quarrel."

He turned and swept his gaze across the room.

His voice hardened.

"I'll ask only one question."

"The Nine Saints have fallen. If I let all of you return now, what happens beneath Heaven?"

"You understand better than anyone."

"Immediately, there will be another storm of blood."

"If you want to dominate all beneath Heaven, first ask yourselves whether you can beat Zijin Cave!"

Gong Lince's gaze flicked from side to side.

Zijin Cave alone had two Nascent Soul cultivators openly visible to the world.

Niu Youdao continued, "And don't forget, I'm an elder of Zijin Cave."

"Set aside Maolu Villa's own strength added to Zijin Cave for a moment."

"If we truly intended to fight for all beneath Heaven, why would I release the rest of you?"

"Why wouldn't I slaughter you right now?"

"If not now, then when?"

[End of Chapter 1571]