Zhou Emperor Ji Zhi sighed inwardly. Naturally, he knew where the claim that the man had slaughtered an entire city came from.
Back then, an Extraterrestrial Demon had been defeated and used the Extraterrestrial Demon Disintegration Technique, splitting into a hundred thousand incarnations. The entire city had fallen within its shroud. Regardless of cultivation, anyone contaminated would fall into inner demons, lose their reason, and bite anyone they saw. Those bitten became new sources of contamination, infecting others. Not even Integrated Body Realm Cultivators had been spared.
If those people had not been killed immediately, the entire Nine Provinces would have been contaminated.
Yet the karmic force involved had been far too great, and the story would have sounded terrible if it spread. Thus, several Human Emperor Candidates had been unwilling to act. Only Jiang Li had acted without hesitation, killing everyone he encountered without the slightest delay. In the end, he had even killed the infected Integrated Body Realm Cultivator, finally stopping the contamination from spreading.
At the time, Jiang Li had said that a solution had yet to be found, and spreading the truth would only cause needless panic. "Just say that innocents were accidentally injured when I fought the Heavenly Demon."
After that, no one had dared call themselves a Human Emperor Candidate before Jiang Li.
Jiang Li casually tossed the man aside, then said to the Jiang Clan Leader, who was prostrate on the ground, "Jiang Clan Leader, I know why you incited the crowd. You merely believed that I valued the people's wishes and wanted to use their thoughts to bind my hands, forcing me to permit the Jiang Family to join the Human Emperor Palace."
"The Human Emperor Palace holds an exalted position and enjoys countless privileges. Jiang Yixing's Demonic Path cultivation case would naturally fall under the Human Emperor Palace's jurisdiction. You repeatedly stressed Jiang Yixing's innocence and repentance, reminiscing about his childhood. Wasn't that simply so I would raise my hand high and bring it down gently, sparing the Jiang Family?"
"Jiang Clan Leader, do you truly think I care about what the people think?"
Jiang Li no longer paid any attention to the Jiang Clan Leader's reaction or the crowd's thoughts. Turning to Zhou Emperor Ji Zhi, he said, "Brother Ji, try Jiang Yixing's Demonic Path cultivation case however it should be tried, and sentence it however it should be sentenced. There is no need to spare me any consideration."
"What a pity. I had originally thought that if you begged me to spare the Jiang Family, I could take the chance to have a fight with you!"
The two looked at each other, then threw back their heads and laughed heartily.
Yuan Wu Xing seemed to realize something. His timidity vanished, and soundlessly, he shattered his core and formed a Nascent Soul. His Nascent Soul was clear down to the finest detail—of the highest grade.
With the Zhou Emperor and the Human Emperor holding down the fort, the case progressed rapidly. The Zhou Emperor even used the Image Retention Orb together with Trace Time to arrest every person involved, one by one.
Apart from a small number who had been unaware, every member of the Jiang Family was thrown into prison to be executed after autumn.
Of those who had served as Green City's city lord, only two had been unaware of the Jiang Family's affairs. The rest of the former city lords were thrown into prison to be executed after autumn.
Jiang Yixing was thrown into the Heavenly Prison and sentenced to the punishment of utter destruction of body and soul.
The two princes had committed the crime of shielding him. Because of their special status, their crimes were even graver. They were thrown into prison for a hundred years, without commutation or parole. Taking the opportunity, the Zhou Emperor conducted a strict investigation into corruption and cover-ups, throwing Great Zhou's officialdom into turmoil.
The Heavenly Prison was gloomy and damp. The Ten Directions Spirit Severing Grand Formation seeped into its foundation stones, making spiritual qi sparse and spiritual workings obscure, preventing the cultivators imprisoned here from cultivating and breaking through. If one spent an entire lifetime here, one likely could not even achieve Qi Induction, much less proceed to Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, and Core Formation.
Only two kinds of people were held in the Heavenly Prison. One kind consisted of those with profound cultivation. Their Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Seven Orifices of the Soul were first pinned with silver needles, leaving them unable to cultivate. The other kind consisted of people whose crimes were monstrous and whose evil was boundless. Though their cultivation was not high, they possessed a vicious streak; imprisoning them elsewhere could easily cause trouble.
These two kinds of people in the Heavenly Prison refused to submit to one another. The former usually held their heads high above the clouds, viewing all living beings as worms and ants, and despised those who committed crimes through sheer ruthlessness. The latter feared neither heaven nor earth. No matter how high your cultivation had been before, weren't you just a mortal like me once you got here?
Thus, the Heavenly Prison's clamor and curses had never ceased.
But today was different. These two groups no longer cursed at each other. Instead, they sat cross-legged quietly and obediently, not daring to stir up trouble.
"Human Emperor Jiang, how imposing. Simply sitting here without saying a word, you can still cow this bunch of prisoners." Jiang Yixing looked at Jiang Li with a smile. His aged body made him cough repeatedly after only a few laughs.
To someone unaware of the truth, the two men sitting opposite each other would seem like grandfather and grandson, not cousins separated by only a year.
Jiang Yixing had killed several hundred infants and cultivated the Demonic Path. Either crime alone was enough to send him to the Heavenly Prison, let alone both together.
"You should be grateful this is Great Zhou. In any other Imperial Dynasty, I would have shot you dead right at the Jiang Family, laws be damned!" Jiang Li said angrily.
Jiang Yixing sneered. "A Great Ascension Stage cultivator truly is extraordinary. How could I compare? My talent was ordinary. I had neither a Heavenly Spiritual Root nor an Immeasurable Dao Body. Without resorting to clever tricks, I would have died in the Foundation Establishment Realm after a lifetime."
"Stop playing dumb here. When I first began cultivating, my Heavenly Spiritual Root concealed itself and my Immeasurable Dao Body was sealed shut. To the outside world, I had only the worst Five Elements Waste Body. Otherwise, how could you have bullied me? To cultivate all the way to the Great Ascension Stage, I faced so many life-and-death crises that even I cannot count them."
"Even so, I never bullied the weak. Yet you went against the grain, slaughtering infants. You truly had no humanity at all!"
Jiang Yixing snorted coldly and said nothing more. What he had said just now had merely been words spoken in anger.
"I have only one question. You had not returned home for five hundred years, so why did you suddenly want to come back and take a look a few days ago? If you had not returned, no one would have discovered me!"
As Jiang Yixing spoke, resentment filled his face, and even the wrinkles on it trembled. If Jiang Li had not returned, he could have secretly controlled all of Green City, borrowed the tiger's might to lord over others, and run wild with power. Once he found a chance to break through to Spirit Transformation, living to a thousand years old would have satisfied him.
You could be your Human Emperor, and I could be Green City's uncrowned king. We could have lived in peace without interfering with one another. Wouldn't that have been perfect? Why did you have to return?
"I felt something in my heart and wanted to take a look. I cannot explain it clearly." Jiang Li had originally intended to explain what a system was to Jiang Yixing, but he realized that he himself found it difficult to explain. So he simply said nothing and attributed it all to spiritual workings.
"The course of heaven has its constants. Perhaps even Heaven could not stand my actions and sent you to punish me." Jiang Yixing muttered on and on, unsurprised by the answer.
Jiang Yixing had long expected this answer. But unless Jiang Li said it, he could not be sure whether things were truly as he imagined. It had always felt as though a stone blocked his chest.
Now that Jiang Li had revealed the answer, the great stone had been moved away. His whole person changed from dispirited to clear and bright, as though he had prepared himself to face death.
"I have finished asking my question. Now it is your turn."
"You knew I had questions?" Jiang Li was somewhat surprised.
"One does not visit the Three Treasures Hall without cause. If you had merely come to see me off, I would gladly have said thank you."
Jiang Li did not stand on ceremony and asked directly, "Where did you obtain the method for blood-sacrificing infants? And where did you learn that Faith Power could wear away the infants' resentment?"
Jiang Yixing raised his head toward the damp ceiling of the prison, silent as though lost in thought, or perhaps organizing his words.
"About three hundred and eighty years ago, a Black-Clothed Man came before me. With a casual point, he raised me from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core. At that time, my lifespan was nearly at its end, yet I had remained stuck in the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage, able only to wait for death. But the Black-Clothed Man gave me another hundred years to live. Naturally, I hurried to thank him."
"He then told me the method of blood-sacrificing infants. Having returned from death, I desired life more than anyone. I was deeply tempted by the Blood Sacrifice Method, but I feared that the infants' resentment would expose my cultivation of the Demonic Path."
"The Black-Clothed Man saw through my hesitation and told me that Faith Power could eliminate resentment. Then he vanished. I never saw him again after that."
Jiang Li thought to himself, If I relied on Faith Power, then once Jiang Yixing's affair came to light, the blow to me would be enormous. Was this a conspiracy aimed at me, or merely the simple spread of the Demonic Path? But three hundred and eighty years ago, I had only been a Human Emperor Candidate. Could it be that the Black-Clothed Man had planted hidden traps for every Human Emperor Candidate? As Jiang Li pondered this, his figure vanished, drifting off to no one knew where.
Jiang Yixing looked at the blue sky and flying birds beyond the small iron window, covered his face, and wept.
Even if he had come to terms with it, he was still afraid of death in the end...
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