Chapter 263: An Unexpected Turn

It really works... Ding Songyan, having finished the li fruit, felt the changes in his body.

He found his soul, consciousness, and spirit had strengthened slightly too, a side effect of the perfect recall.

"Thank you, Brother Liu." Ding Songyan turned his gaze to Liu Cheng.

As he stopped concentrating fully, the sensation of everything he saw being reflected in his sea of consciousness faded.

For Ding Songyan, that was actually a good thing. That way, he wouldn’t have to remember what he didn’t want to.

Liu Cheng smiled.

"Are you satisfied, Brother Ding?"

"Just what I needed." Ding Songyan never accepted a favor without a return, and asked directly, "What time tonight?"

"10 pm tonight. We shall meet at the mountain road entrance to Blossoms Mountain by Golden Pool." Liu Cheng had prepared for days for the killing of his godfather.

Ding Songyan nodded, said nothing more, left the Silver Hook Gambling House, and headed back toward the estate.

Passing Tiger Tail Alley, he kept his promise and did not disturb Twelfth Madam.

In the estate’s side courtyard.

Ding Songyan guided Li Baima for a while, then sat behind the stone table and recalled everything about the Metal-Melting Finger recorded in Sun Feiyang’s cultivation notes, along with the related details the ghost had revealed during their exchange.

This art was the nemesis of the "indestructible vajra."

Though the "absence" in Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi should also be able to unify an indestructible body, Unifying Sword Qi certainly could not. It required direct contact by a weapon or the person himself, and a gradual process of conversion, so it couldn’t work in one stroke. By comparison, the Metal-Melting Finger could pierce instantly.

Ding Songyan had been slowly trying to merge the Metal-Melting Finger into the Unifying Finger and the Unifying Sword, using Bringing All Things Into Unity in place of "accumulating evil deeds" so that this art could ultimately become fuel for the sword that broke all arts. But progress was slight, since the description "accumulates evil and dissolves metal" was so plain and clear, nearly the essence itself.

With nothing else to do for now, Ding Songyan pondered it again.

By night, he put on a black combat outfit common in the jianghu, slipped out of the estate’s side courtyard, and made his way to the foot of Blossoms Mountain by Golden Pool.

Liu Cheng, with illusory cyan snakes adorning both ears, was already waiting there, wearing a grayish robe and holding two sheathed longswords.

He was not at all surprised to see Ding Songyan empty-handed, without Frostshade.

That weapon was distinctive and too conspicuous. If anything went wrong tonight and it was recognized, the Brightnight Sect would be implicated.

"Brother Ding, this sword isn’t as good as your Frostshade, but it’ll do." Liu Cheng handed Ding Songyan the longsword in his right hand.

Ding Songyan drew the blade with a ring. Cold light poured off it, sharp enough to bite, as if made of a hundred-times-refined steel with a little yang metal added.

After a few flourishes to get used to the weapon, Ding Songyan went into the nearby woods, took the black face cloth Liu Cheng passed him, and covered his face.

Using the night and shadows, the two crept all the way to the side of Shilin Temple, with its yellow walls and black tiles, climbed over the wall, and reached the most remote courtyard.

Hu Chaohui was very confident in the Body-and-Will Heterodox Sect and Shilin Temple, and had brought only four Sea-Treading Gang members, split into two groups on night patrol.

When the patrolling gang members entered a spot hard to see from the watchtower, Liu Cheng and Ding Songyan knocked them out with ease and moved them to a corner without a sound.

Brother Ding really did learn something from the Treatise on Sharing the Shadows of the World. His stealth even surpasses mine... Liu Cheng turned to look at Ding Songyan, pointed at himself, then at the bedroom.

His meaning was clear: I’ll handle the assassination. You just guard the courtyard for me, Brother Ding.

Ding Songyan nodded, moved to a spot near the bedroom, leaned back against a beam, and hid in the shadows.

He stood hugging his sword, completely relaxed.

Liu Cheng calmed himself, then reached into his robe and took out an item.

It was a Jade Maiden mask painted with peach-blossom rouge.

Not bad, using your godfather’s mental weakness, perhaps even his inner demon... But are you going to be a "Jade Maiden" too? Ding Songyan found it amusing.

He couldn’t bring himself to wear his Golden Boy mask out again.

Liu Cheng put on the Jade Maiden mask, took the longsword he didn’t use often but was fairly skilled with, and approached the bedroom soundlessly.

......

In the bedroom.

Hu Chaohui, who had sent away a courtesan, lay peacefully on his bed, calm and secure, letting his thoughts drift naturally.

Yuping is skilled in bed. Truly bewitching. I’ll call her over again in a few days...

My adopted son has been "recovering from injuries," unwilling to take over the gang’s businesses. It seems he’s still clinging to his "harmony brings wealth." I’ll have to rein him in when I have time...

I’ve had one incident after another. I can’t let him develop second thoughts. As long as he’s around, I may still enjoy my old age in the Flame Capital...

As his thoughts drifted, Hu Chaohui’s heart suddenly tightened. He sat bolt upright and saw a figure had burst into the room.

The figure wore a gray robe and a Jade Maiden mask. He looked down from above, qi gathering around him as if obeying his commands.

Hu Chaohui felt suppressed by a nightmare, as though back on the night of the attack, and back in the nightmare that had utterly shattered his state of mind.

He seemed to face Di Hong again.

Hu Chaohui’s body and mind trembled, and for a moment he could not make any move, watching helplessly as the man in the Jade Maiden mask thrust a sharp sword at him.

It was accompanied by a sound like deep thunder cracking.

"Bind!"

Layer upon layer of shackles fell on Hu Chaohui, restricting his movement.

This seemed unnecessary, since Hu Chaohui was still caught in the nightmare and briefly unable to resist.

Just then, his face twisted in pain, then abruptly turned venomous and full of resentment, as if he had grown a second face.

"Two-Faced!" Liu Cheng was thunderstruck.

How could his godfather be a Two-Faced?

He and his godfather had gone to the bathhouse together!

Shock notwithstanding, Liu Cheng’s assassination did not slow in the slightest. His longsword lashed toward Hu Chaohui’s brow like rolling thunder.

Once Hu Chaohui’s face turned venomous and ruthless, he drew on that resentment and selfishness to finally shake off the extreme fear and regain his thoughts.

Seeing the longsword nearly at his forehead, his body pinned by the layered shackles and unable to dodge effectively, Hu Chaohui spat out a single word with a contorted expression,

"Collapse!"

The surrounding qi collapsed at once, dancing in disorder and turning into a raging hurricane.

The turbulence knocked the sword tip aside and sent Hu Chaohui flying.

Liu Cheng’s longsword pierced his godfather’s body but missed the brow and only ran through his right chest.

......

"Two-Faced?"

Ding Songyan, sensing the movements in the room through the Chaos Realm, noticed Hu Chaohui’s change too.

He had looked at the Sea-Treading Gang leader with Candle-Star Pupils before, and had also come into contact with him in the Celestial Heart state.

Back then, Hu Chaohui was definitely not Two-Faced!

When and where was he infected? A Demon Seed implant, or a natural transformation? Who did it? Ding Songyan drew his sword with a ring.

He was going to give Brother Liu a hand, finish this quickly, and immediately carry out spirit channeling.

The sounds Liu Cheng and Hu Chaohui had made, and the commotion of the fight, had been sealed by the dark, naked-eye-invisible "gauze cover" over the bedroom and had not reached the outside to alert the eminent monks of Shilin Temple.

"Establishing the Six Directions!"

Just then, the gravely wounded Hu Chaohui, like a fierce tiger, fully overcame his fear and, by trading another wound for an opening, slammed into the oiled-paper window.

That wooden window was clearly fragile, yet Hu Chaohui hit it as if hitting rock, and only by putting in everything he had did he shatter the "gauze cover" of darkness that blended into the night.

The noise thus escaped.

After breaking through the window, Hu Chaohui pressed forward, and suddenly a sword tip like a venomous snake reached in from outside, light and precise, and drove into his brow as if it had been waiting there all along.

Even if the tip hadn’t moved, Hu Chaohui’s forward lunge was toward it, and he would inevitably have hit it.

Hu Chaohui’s eyes widened abruptly, but he could not see who held the sword.

The light in his eyes faded fast, and from his throat came a wheeze like a dying beast’s struggle.

Thud! He fell out the window, hit the ground, and stopped breathing.

That sound was sealed by Ding Songyan.

But almost at the same instant, Ding Songyan’s vision suddenly blurred.

He saw solemn, sacred golden lotuses well up from the ground, and a golden-bodied giant Buddha sitting cross-legged on a lotus throne appeared high in the sky.

So fast... Ding Songyan had only just thought it when the golden Buddha, majestic and dignified, extended his right hand in a mudra.

Ding Songyan immediately smelled all kinds of warm fragrances and felt the soft jade of various textures. He gathered all the Peerless Beauties of the Jianghu and withdrew into the mountains under the name of a Sage, enjoying every romantic fortune and every honor, floating as if an immortal, lost and unable to wake...

In a blink, he was found by the Demon Sovereign, fought an intense battle and was crippled, with no strength left to resist, slaughtered like an animal, suffering every humiliation, unable to find release...

The Demon Sovereign razed his mountain gate, and his beloved all fell before him, their eyes frozen with unwilling resentment. He felt as though he had crashed into an ice cellar, his whole body cold, yet unable to stand against Tan Guanchan, and no one could save them...

Joy, anger, sorrow, delight, suffering, pain, over and over, a cycle that left Ding Songyan’s mind and body wounded and exhausted.

He saw the majestic golden Buddha again and clearly heard the voice echoing in midair, "All beings suffer. Repent and be saved!"

The Buddha’s voice shook body and soul, and the giant palm in its mudra came down like Mount Sumeru.

As the palm pressed down, a jet-black handprint suddenly appeared on the golden Buddha’s body.

Then one jet-black handprint after another surfaced on the giant Buddha’s indestructible body, dense and numerous: some small as an infant’s, some slender as a woman’s, some with an extra finger, some large as a palm-leaf fan...

In the Buddha’s eyes, the masked assassin vanished eerily, and what entered his gaze were the monks of Shilin Temple one after another: some violating others’ wives and daughters, some lending at usurious rates, some taking fellow disciples as wives, some torturing commoners. A dance of demons.

"Before I’ve even arrived, the Dharma is already in disorder, and the monks look like demons..." A feather-light voice suddenly rose beside the golden Buddha’s ear.

His body was wrapped in black flame at once, and two lines of bloody tears flowed from his eyes.

He abruptly came to and saw himself still standing in the courtyard, as if he had just had a nightmare.

He was a handsome but aged monk in a gray monk’s robe. He had pure light shining around him, his fingers all the color of red copper, his earlobes thick and round, with golden snakes coiled around them.

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