The instant Chiyangzi landed, every plant within a hundred zhang withered.
The stench of blood still lingered over that wilderness, thick enough to choke on. Chiyangzi wore crimson robes, their hems utterly still in the night wind. He lowered his eyes to the headless corpse on the ground. His Adam's apple bobbed twice, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened, one by one.
"Mingyuan..."
His voice was very soft, as though he feared waking someone.
But the next moment, all the dead vegetation within a hundred zhang exploded into dust at once. Crimson spiritual power gushed from his body, shearing a full three feet off the ground.
He crouched, his trembling fingers brushing over the clean cut across his son's neck.
A wisp of clear, water-bright sword intent lingered along the cut. He could not recognize the sword art or tell whose handiwork it was.
All he recognized was his son's blood.
Chiyangzi swept his right hand, and a crimson pillar of light rose from his palm, lifting Chi Mingyuan's corpse into the air.
Wrapped in his spiritual power, the boy's warm body slowly drew inward and curled up, like a young beast gathered back into an embrace.
Chiyangzi lightly touched his son's brow with a fingertip. A drop of essence blood seeped from the corpse's brow and dripped into his palm.
The moment the essence blood touched his palm, Chiyangzi's pupils abruptly contracted.
A faint divine sense mark remained in that drop of essence blood. It was a life-saving measure he had personally planted in his son. Once his son died, the mark would automatically leave its host and burrow into the killer's body like a leech scenting blood.
"Whoever you are..."
Chiyangzi absorbed the drop of essence blood into his palm and abruptly closed his