Chapter 180
Chapter 180
“What Master said at the time… was actually meant to test you.”
“That was why he deliberately added, ‘You must never let your Senior Brother Tianji learn of this, or he may act against you.'”
“You must have heard every word clearly, Senior Brother.”
At “Ren Yao’s” words, light and shadow shifted over Master Tianji’s unnaturally youthful face.
He remained silent for a long time, but remembered clearly how that remark had turned his entire body cold as he stood outside the window, as though he had fallen into an ice cellar.
Master… had been guarding against him all along.
Of course he had been unwilling to accept it.
In seniority, Ren Yao had joined the sect more than ten years after him.
It was bad enough that Master had secretly taught Ren Yao such a profound art. But he had actually… guarded against Tianji too?
After that, Tianji searched every ancient text he could find for records of the secret art.
Finally, after several days and nights of tireless effort, he truly found a few clues…
The ancient texts stated that whoever extracted and refined a Soul Essence would gain the caster’s lifetime of cultivation.
But extracting a Soul Essence was far from easy. To call it fraught with a thousand obstacles and ten thousand perils would be no exaggeration.
First, Renxuan Marquis Manor lay far away in the Imperial City and was difficult to enter. The young son of the Ren Family was protected by Ren Yao’s Soul Essence and had already become impervious to all evil.
Second, the array required to extract the Soul Essence was long and complicated. The slightest misstep could cause the array to backlash against its caster.
So Master Tianji buried the matter in his heart and could only plan in secret.
What he had not expected was that soon after Ren Yao left Mount Yunhe, their master passed away as well.
On his deathbed, the old man directly passed the position of sect leader to Tianji and left him with a single remark that still made his heart jolt whenever he remembered it.
After gaining the position, Master Tianji did let the matter go for a time and became less inclined to think about it.
After all, Ren Yao no longer posed any threat to him.
Then one day, Tianwen, the senior brother expelled from the sect, suddenly came to him and brought a “calamity” in his wake.
Master Tianji had no choice but to remember that secret art again. He even came to believe it was the only thing that could save him.
And so, using his chief disciple Yan Zhengchu’s relationship with Ren Yao, he devised what he considered a flawless plan and made a journey down the mountain…
Yet now, Ren Yao was telling him that all of it had merely been Master’s way of testing him?
Fifteen years.
Master Tianji let out a cold laugh.
“I do not believe you. If Master’s words back then were false, tell me: what is the truth?”
“Ren Yao” grew solemn. “That so-called secret art never existed.”
“Master said those things only to test whether you harbored disloyal intentions.”
“When you secretly searched through the ancient texts, Master knew that his suspicions were correct.”
Master Tianji shuddered again, flames visibly rising in his eyes.
So even the records of the secret art he found were merely what Master had wanted him to see?
Then what was the true purpose of the array?
Had it been designed to awaken his beloved disciple Ren Yao’s soul more than a decade later?
Realizing that he had been “played,” Master Tianji laughed in a fury. “Good. Very good!”
The corners of his eyes gradually reddened. His fingers tightened one by one, the veins bulging on the backs of his hands and his knuckles turning white.
The next instant, he rose into the air, his entire body brimming with murderous intent.
“In that case, all of you can stay and be buried with me!”
At his frenzied roar, the entire secret chamber suddenly began to tremble.
Yan Zhengchu, still lying on the floor, was the first to sense that something was clearly hidden within the secret chamber…
His face filled with horror. He stared wide-eyed at “Ren Yao,” trying to warn him with his gaze.
“Ren Yao” immediately noticed. With another light flick of his fingers, he broke the spell restraining Yan Zhengchu.
“Martial… Uncle…”
The moment feeling returned to his body, Yan Zhengchu tried to speak, only to find his voice hoarse.
Battered and disheveled, he tried to climb to his feet, but suddenly remembered how he used to fall and cry during training as a child.
Little Martial Uncle would always watch him from a distance before teasing, “You are going to be the senior brother of Mount Yunhe one day. How will you lead the others if you cry so easily?”
Now Yan Zhengchu felt as though he had returned to those days. Before he could utter another word, his tears were already beyond control.
A grown man, he began sobbing like a child.
“Yan Zhengchu.”
Though “Ren Yao” was possessing Ren Fengjue’s body, his tone and even his voice sounded almost exactly as they had years ago.
Still smiling, he asked, “How old are you now? Do you still cry as easily as you did when you were little?”
Yan Zhengchu finally managed to stand. He wiped his tears away with one fierce motion and struggled to force the rest back, but could not speak for a time.
“Ren Yao” gave him a slight nod.
Then he looked at Bai He and said deliberately, “It appears your master has no intention of letting either of you leave alive…”
Bai He felt the floor trembling beneath his feet, but did not understand what his master intended.
Yan Zhengchu had seen far more than he had. After watching Master Tianji for a moment and considering the tremors inside the chamber, his expression changed dramatically. “It is the Ghost-Commanding Art!” he cried.
The person who had truly cultivated the Ghost-Commanding Art was not Tianwen, but his own master!
Bai He still looked utterly lost.
Yan Zhengchu immediately thought of his junior brothers on the mountain, as well as Yu Lang and Axia.
If Master Tianji activated the Ghost-Commanding Art, they would be the ones who suffered.
“Martial Uncle!”
Yan Zhengchu shouted to “Ren Yao,” “My junior brothers are in danger!”
“Ren Yao” also saw that something was wrong. “I will hold him back. Go save the others.”
“Yes!”
Master Tianji now hovered in midair, his hands forming a seal.
As he closed his eyes and murmured an incantation, his entire body visibly aged at a terrifying rate.
When he opened his eyes again, the face that had been smooth moments before was webbed with wrinkles.
Cracks covered his palms, and his fingers resembled the roots of an ancient tree.
Most terrifying of all, nothing but blood-red color remained in his eyes.
“Ren Yao,” meanwhile, wondered why Master Tianji would choose to slaughter everyone on Mount Yunhe after his true nature was exposed.
By all appearances, he meant to take everyone down with him and had no intention of surviving himself…
After so many years with Senior Brother Tianji, Ren Yao knew his character. He appeared kind, but was narrow-minded and selfish to the core.
This alone could never drive him to throw away his own life!
There had to be some other connection hidden beneath all this…
Suspicion rising in his heart, “Ren Yao” summoned the Sword Soul sealed within Ren Fengjue’s body.
At the sight, Master Tianji laughed coldly. “No wonder there was no trace of your sword in Renxuan Marquis Manor. So you hid it inside the body of that young son of the Ren Family.”
“Ren Yao” answered, “There is no harm in telling you. Master never taught me any secret art that day. He told me only one phrase…”
“The Jade Sword has a spirit.”