Chapter 28

The Essence Qi of Gangsha vanished, and the scorching heat that had driven people mad finally ebbed away, returning to stillness.

Ning Chang'an only felt thirsty, his mouth and tongue parched. The skin all over his body was shriveled like old tree bark, his face haggard and his limbs weak. This ordeal had nearly "heated" Ning Chang'an to death.

He desperately needed water—vast amounts of water. He felt that his blood had thickened to the point where it could no longer flow.

The instinct to survive drove his consciousness. There was only one thought in his mind: water!

Without water soon, he would still die without a doubt.

Ning Chang'an suddenly sprang up, his body swaying unsteadily. Everyone felt that he had abruptly become much thinner. He looked around, and his gaze finally settled on the rim of an old well at the edge of the martial arts arena.

He could no longer care about anything else. Gathering the greatest strength he could muster, he rushed toward the well.

Divine Detective Eagle looked astonished, while Lu Feixin's expression was even stranger. Lu Feixin instinctively glanced at the note in his hand. It did indeed bear the two characters Chang'an. He had seen Chang'an fall victim to the attack and had already concluded that the note came from the killer, but he truly had not expected Ning Chang'an to survive.

He simply could not believe his own eyes. He did not think Ning Chang'an could be stronger than Mao Dongyue.

Ning Chang'an fell three times on his way to the well, cutting a thoroughly wretched figure. At last, he barely managed to climb onto the well rim, then rolled over and plunged into the well.

Only Ning Chang'an himself knew that he had fallen three times because the killer had struck three more times.

He fell into the well. Whether he lived or died was unknown!

Was this how he died?!

Ning Chang'an could already feel his consciousness drifting away. The words "soul scattered and spirit dispersed" suddenly came to mind. He felt as though he was not in a well, but in a hazy, formless expanse of darkness.

There was only coldness and fear in the darkness, only descent and extinction.

He yearned for light. No matter how black the night was, as long as he saw a single star, he could calm down. Light could grant him salvation.

His yearning reached its limit.

Then light appeared in the darkness. It was pure white, crystalline and translucent, blooming in the deepest darkness like an epiphyllum that appeared for but an instant.

Bathed in that flash of brightness, a strange feeling surged in Ning Chang'an's heart.

What he yearned for was not light, but hope. That light was not light either—it was hope.

He finally understood what that strange feeling was. It was the sensation of suffocation and impending drowning. His stomach had already filled with icy well water. He desperately tried to breathe, only to inhale more water, which flooded directly into his lungs.

His consciousness cleared, and he discovered that he was actually still alive.

At that moment, those fantastical scenes from earlier kept surfacing in his mind, leaving him feeling as though he were in a dream. Having survived the catastrophe, he immediately clamped his mouth shut and fiercely kicked off from the bottom of the well. Then an unbelievable sight occurred.

Ning Chang'an shot out of the well like a cannonball, trailing a pillar of water that soared into the sky.

He truly had not expected his strength to become so powerful.

The instant he landed, countless deafening sounds entered his ears. Even the sound of the tiniest droplets striking the ground rang as bright and clear as pearls and jade falling onto a jade plate.

He felt as though he had been completely reborn, and for a moment, he could not adapt.

The familiar world he had always known unfolded before him in a livelier, sharper form.

Caught off guard, he neither shouted in exhilaration nor gaped in shock. In an instant, he had calmed down.

Because he sensed killing intent—icy killing intent.

At this moment, he sensed the aura that neither Lu Feixin nor Divine Detective Eagle could perceive.

But that aura was hazy and intangible. He could only feel its biting coldness and indifference, unable to grasp it, much less lock onto it.

The killing intent hung over him at every moment like the shadow of death.

He had completely closed his eyes, straining to sense it.

At this time, he was the only one in Green Willow Manor who could truly sense the killer's existence.

Suddenly, a grim and terrifying aura surged toward him. Under Ning Chang'an's perception, it felt as though he had been abruptly dragged into a blood-red world, where a crazed aura threatened to grind him to pieces.

Ning Chang'an's mind trembled wildly. His face immediately turned deathly pale, and he snapped his eyes open.

There was only one person in his eyes: a lean man. The man had a head of jet-black, curly hair, not long, hanging loose over his shoulders. Beneath his broad forehead were thick, vertical eyebrows sharp as blades. Below those blade-like brows were a pair of astonishingly large eyes, but within them gleamed only the cold light of deathly stillness. Beneath those fierce, evil eyes were two prominent cheekbones. Between them ran a crooked nose bridge, its tip curved like an eagle's beak. That nose bridge had been broken, and more than once. One glance made it seem as though a mountain range had been brutally cleaved apart three or four times. Beneath the nose were thin, bloodless pale lips, with only two small streaks of mustache at their corners.

That face was terribly white, with an almost translucent quality.

Without needing to think, Ning Chang'an knew that this man was King Mao. Only King Mao possessed such horrifying murderous aura.

That cold, bloodthirsty aura had become part of him.

Yet Ning Chang'an truly could not believe his eyes, because he could not imagine what kind of skeleton could bear such a body.

King Mao himself was very thin, but no one's first impression upon seeing him would be thinness. It would be power—power so overwhelming that he no longer seemed human, but a vicious beast.

His frame gave people the powerful shock of steel cast in a furnace at every moment.

Everyone held their breath, because King Mao's eyes were sweeping over them from time to time.

The first thing he did after appearing at Green Willow Manor was not look at his son's corpse, but cast a cold gaze over everyone present.

Those his gaze settled upon felt a bone-chilling cold, as if they had fallen into an ice cavern ten thousand years old, flood through their hearts and bodies.

Without saying a word, King Mao looked for a full thirty breaths. During those thirty breaths, so long they seemed without end, no one dared let out a single breath.

One glance subdued the crowd, terrifying them until they did not dare even breathe loudly. Such was one man's majesty—the majesty of King Mao alone.

King Mao withdrew his gaze and only then looked at his son.

He slowly walked forward step by step. Where he passed, the ground did not sink in the slightest, yet it filled with spiderweb-like cracks. A trace of gentleness appeared in his icy eyes. He reached out with one large hand and gathered Mao Dongyue from the ground. Blood was still flowing continuously from Mao Dongyue's mouth, scarlet blood not yet cold staining King Mao's shoulder and chest. King Mao merely looked at Mao Dongyue's face, at those eyes staring wide open. After a long while, he sighed. "Dust returns to dust, earth returns to earth. Close your eyes, child." He reached out and helped Mao Dongyue close his eyes. Two expressionless men silently stepped out behind him, carrying a high-backed chair. They set the chair down gently, and King Mao gently placed Mao Dongyue upon it.

The chair was truly set down very gently—so gently that even Ning Chang'an did not hear a sound, as though the chair, which should have weighed more than twenty catties, had no weight at all.

The blood at Mao Dongyue's lips was carefully wiped away. King Mao gently stroked his face, smoothing away his deathly grimace bit by bit until he looked as though he were asleep.

"Sleep. You will not be alone on the road to the Yellow Springs."

King Mao spoke softly. It was the voice every loving father ought to have had, yet everyone shuddered.

Ning Chang'an suddenly felt that intangible killing intent disappear, vanishing completely.

King Mao straightened and looked at Lu Feixin. In an utterly calm voice, he said, "Lu Feixin, roll down here!" There was not a trace of anger in his tone, because there was not a trace of emotion in those words.

Lu Feixin's face darkened. He leaped down from the building like a great eagle spreading its wings to glide.

But before he landed, he discovered that someone stood beneath him. That person had clenched fists and waited for him expressionlessly.

Lu Feixin was startled.

This man was one of the two who had carried the chair. He threw a punch at Lu Feixin.

Lu Feixin thrust out both palms, his powerful true qi surging forth like mountains toppling and seas overturning. This was the martial art exclusive to the master of Lu Family Manor—Cloud-Dispelling Palm, a Qi Gong palm technique passed down by the ancestors of Lu Family Manor. Once someone cultivated this palm art until their inner qi reached a certain depth, legend said that with both feet planted on the earth, one palm strike toward the heavens could blast apart even the clouds at the sky's roof. It was extraordinarily fearsome.

The moment Lu Feixin struck, he used the secret art of Cloud-Dispelling Palm, solely because the expressionless man before him, not yet thirty years old, gave him an immense sense of danger.

The man's punch was simple and direct, without the slightest flourish.

Yet this utterly plain punch easily broke through Lu Feixin's Cloud-Dispelling Palm and struck him squarely in the chest.

Lu Feixin flew backward like a pellet, smashing through the railing before bouncing and tumbling down from the building. Several highly skilled disciples of the Lu family tried to catch him, only to feel a chill descend upon them. Then a ghostly shadow flashed past them. The heads of those Lu family disciples all twisted strangely to one side, shattered teeth and blood spraying out like explosions. Seven or eight corpses came rolling down from the sky like hailstones.

It was still that expressionless man who had attacked.

With a bang, Lu Feixin hit the ground, falling so hard that the world spun around him. Blood rushed into his face, and he could not help spitting out a mouthful of blood. He staggered to his feet, shocked and furious, and roared hysterically, "Why?"

King Mao said, "You do not know how to behave."

Lu Feixin froze.

He truly did not know how to behave! King Mao had told him to roll down, so he should have obediently rolled down. Rolling down and flying down were completely different things.

Lu Feixin's entire body trembled.

King Mao said, "Have you understood now?"

Lu Feixin's teeth chattered, but he was unwilling to utter a single word. He was no insignificant figure in the martial world. His seniority was sufficient, his reputation great, and his family fortune abundant. How could he endure the humiliation of being lectured by another?

This was simply harder to bear than death.

Smack!

A crisp slap rang out. Lu Feixin's body twisted as he flew away, and even the teeth that had yet to fall out in his old age flew from his mouth.

But before he hit the ground, a powerful hand had already seized the back of his neck and lifted him into the air.

It was still that man who had struck. His speed was impossible to fathom.

From beginning to end, King Mao had not moved a single inch.

Lu Feixin, the master of Lu Family Manor, whom countless people in the martial world had to watch for every shift of expression, was in this man's hands like a living clay figurine—he could be kneaded however the man wished.

The man set Lu Feixin down on the ground. Lu Feixin's legs actually trembled, and he dropped to his knees. Even if a weight of a thousand catties had pressed down on him, Lu Feixin's cultivation would not have allowed him to tremble even once, much less kneel.