Chapter 57

Qiao Ting's cultivation, which had been stored in the star-grass, was ultimately given to Zhao Duan by Qiao Gou. Consequently, Zhao Duan reached the pinnacle of the Mahayana realm, standing half a step into the Tribulation Transcendence realm.

Zhao Duan felt immensely pleased with himself—he had finally cleared his name and triumphed over that base interloper who had usurped his rightful place.

In the Twenty-seventh City, Qiao Ting's name was completely erased. There remained only a self-indulgent young master Zhao, who acted with utter lawlessness, backed by two elders in the Tribulation Transcendence realm.

Sometimes, Qiao Gou found Zhao Duan's actions unwarranted and would start to speak, only to trail off and eventually drop the matter altogether.

Things had already reached this point; apart from Zhao Duan's usual unruly behavior, what major calamity could possibly ensue?

He had never failed the living beings of the Twenty-seventh City; it was only in his family matters that he had failed to find fulfillment.

Thus, Qiao Gou said nothing.

However, Zhao Duan's triumph did not last long.

For Qiao Ting returned—returning to the Twenty-seventh City as a cultivator in the Tribulation Transcendence realm, and establishing an immortal dwelling of his own.

Having absorbed Qiao Ting's cultivation, Zhao Duan had still failed to cross his tribulation even after decades. Yet Qiao Ting, who had fallen from his cultivation base and had to rebuild it from scratch, managed to break through to the Tribulation Transcendence realm a step ahead of him, surpassing him entirely!

Following custom, the City Lord's Mansion issued an invitation to the "newly arrived" Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, inviting him to the mansion for a discussion.

This "invitation" was truly laughable—who in the world did not know that Qiao Ting had grown up in the City Lord's Mansion?

When Qiao Ting came to "visit," the surrounding people wore strange expressions, while Zhao Duan looked particularly pale as he watched Qiao Ting walk right past him, gazing straight ahead as if he did not exist at all.

"You—"

Someone grabbed Zhao Duan's arm. "Young Master Zhao, refrain from disrupting the peace."

Peace?

There had never been any peace between Zhao Duan and Qiao Ting.

Zhao Duan stepped forward to block the path, but Qiao Gou walked out instead, saying, "Everyone fall back, and Duan'er as well."

"Father—"

"Fall back." It was a rare moment for Qiao Gou to be so firm with Zhao Duan.

As Zhao Duan was dragged away by the others, Qiao Gou said with a grave expression, "Just now—"

"Just now, Zhao Duan's words and actions were unruly. The City Lord was afraid he would offend me, and that I would hold a grudge and retaliate to a point of no return, which is why you stopped him," Qiao Ting directly cut off whatever whitewashing words Qiao Gou was about to utter. "Rest assured, City Lord, I consider past debts settled as favors, and I will not hold a grudge. Now that I have come, I have fulfilled the visit. May I leave now?"

Qiao Gou hesitated for a moment before saying, "You have been sensible since childhood; Duan'er's temperament is indeed pampered and willful. You have always been wise, and I merely thought you could indulge him a little. Now that you have returned after rebuilding your cultivation, stop harboring resentment. In the future, I will keep a tighter rein on him—"

Qiao Ting, who had already turned to leave, paused, turned his head back, and raised an eyebrow. "Indulge him? Does the City Lord believe that because I was sensible, because I lacked his capricious and pampered nature, and because I swallowed my grievances without causing a major disturbance, I was therefore obligated to endure it? There is no such logic in this world. Whatever I owed him, and whatever I lacked in my debt to you, I have returned in full. My choices have never been about harboring resentment."

"City Lord, when Mother was still alive,"—he referred to his mortal mother, who had been dead for a century,—"you were not like this. In your youth, you were clearly a spirited and dashing young man, able to face even your aging mother with a calm and clear conscience. But after she passed away, what happened? Have you truly let it go?"

Qiao Ting smiled. "Back then, you claimed repeatedly that you did not care about Mother's limited mortal lifespan, but after she was gone, you sought a substitute in Zhao Duan for your misplaced obsessions. You are no longer the person you were in your youth."

"Qiao Ting!"

Caring not to trade blows with him, Qiao Ting turned and hurried away.

After that day, Qiao Gou went into seclusion for a long time. When he emerged, he would often gaze blankly at Zhao Duan, lost in thought—he seemed to have begun to regret, beginning to rein in Zhao Duan's reckless behavior.

The cultivators of the City Lord's Mansion spoke of Zhao Duan with increasing directness behind his back, and the mortals whispered endlessly among themselves.

Just as Zhao Duan was gritting his teeth in frustration, he suddenly received a sound-transmission talisman wrapped in black Qi.

Seeing this scene, An Wuxue and Xie Zhefeng both wore solemn expressions.

Wrapped around this talisman was precisely turbidity Qi!

Judging by the timeline in Zhao Duan's memories, that was precisely several months ago, right around the time when the turmoil in the Northern Netherworld was just beginning to show omens!

Unlearned and ignorant of everything, Zhao Duan did not understand the gravity of the situation and unwrapped the sound-transmission talisman all by himself.

The person on the other end of the talisman asked him, "Do you want to become the most powerful cultivator in the Twenty-seventh City, trample Qiao Ting beneath your feet, and make Qiao Gou, Qiao Yin, and Zhao Qiuran all bow to your commands?"

Zhao Duan's eyes lit up, and he naturally nodded without hesitation.

An Wuxue gritted his teeth. "It's that person behind the Northern Netherworld turmoil!"

The voice on the sound-transmission talisman had clearly been disguised by spellcraft, making it impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.

The mastermind never showed their face at all.

Xie Zhefeng frowned and said, "This person is so familiar even with the family matters of City Lord Qiao; as expected, they are exceptionally well-versed in the affairs of the Northern Netherworld and the mechanics of the sword array."

In Zhao Duan's memory, after leaving the sound-transmission talisman, that person used it to guide him in cultivating with turbidity Qi and entering the demonic path, revealing the locations of massive deposits of turbidity Qi. Cultivating with turbidity Qi had no bottlenecks; as long as there was enough turbidity Qi, one could ascend to the heavens in a single step. Within a mere few months, Zhao Duan easily surged into the late stage of the Tribulation Transcendence realm.

And that was not all.

Including the manual on puppet techniques and the method for stealing the core of the sword array, everything had been provided by the person behind the sound-transmission talisman.

During the first few months of the Northern Netherworld's lockdown, that person and Zhao Duan communicated entirely through sound-transmission talismans, successfully deceiving even Qiao Gou and Zhao Qiuran.

Until a few days ago, when Zhao Duan finally prepared to act against the sword array.

By then, he was already in the late stage of Tribulation Transcendence, and even while standing within the sword array itself, Qiao Gou had failed to notice him.

Before making his move, however, he had hesitated slightly.

No matter how unlearned he was, he knew the importance of the Northern Netherworld sword array. He took out the sound-transmission talisman and asked, "You're making me do this, but if something goes wrong and it draws the attention of the Chuhan Sword Sovereign, won't I be dead for sure?"

"When turbidity Qi fills the Northern Netherworld, Shangguan Liaoliao will have no other choice; she can only seal the Northern Netherworld."

"That still won't stop the Immortal Sovereign!"

"There is more than one person in this world capable of ascending to immortality, and Xie Zhefeng is not the only one."

Stuttering, Zhao Duan asked, "Y-You mean you can ascend?"

That person fell silent, neither confirming nor denying it.

Seeing that the person was about to cut off the transmission, Zhao Duan hurriedly asked, "Then you at least have to tell me who you are! Right now, practicing the demonic path makes ascension impossible. What if even I could beat you in a fight, and you're just blowing hot air here? If you don't give me a straight answer, I won't dare tamper with the Northern Netherworld sword array..."

Although Zhao Duan was not intelligent, he was afraid of death, and in matters like this, he retained a shred of caution.

The other end of the sound-transmission talisman remained quiet for a while longer.

At last, that gender-neutral voice finally spoke: "Practicing the demonic path today cannot lead to ascension, but I am not a person of this era. Just because no demonic cultivator has ascended since the Immortal Calamity does not mean one cannot achieve immortality through turbidity Qi before the calamity ends."

Zhao Duan's pupils constricted violently. "You—you are someone who practiced turbidity Qi before the end of the Immortal Calamity!? No way, are you trying to fool me? Even I know that the great demons and fiends of the Immortal Calamity were all slain by the Immortal Sovereign!"

"Since I gave you the puppet technique, I naturally know the complete method of resurrection. If this method can resurrect others, why can it not resurrect myself?"

At these words, Xie Zhefeng instantly looked toward An Wuxue.

Feeling the gaze of the person beside him, An Wuxue had no spare capacity to overthink it.

His gaze froze, and with a stunned expression, he stared at the talisman floating within the sword array of the memory, a chill running through his heart.

A cultivator who had existed since the era of the Immortal Calamity; a person who had entered the demonic path a thousand years ago.

Someone intimately familiar with the intricacies of the Four Seas Ten Thousand Swords Array, who knew that Song Wu—who had cultivated with turbidity Qi into the demonic path and reached half a step to immortality—was suppressed beneath the Zhaoshui Sword Array, and who also understood the method to simultaneously pry open forty-nine fractional sword arrays of the Northern Netherworld.

Someone who died during the Immortal Calamity, yet was resurrected through puppet techniques.

Every single word, every single sentence.

Meeting all these conditions simultaneously, An Wuxue could think of only one person.

And that person was standing right here, standing beside the Chuhan Sword Sovereign, who had slaughtered all the demons and fiends in the world after emerging from seclusion following his immortal ascension.

That person was himself.

An Wuxue's mind reeled violently.

Ever since he woke up a thousand years later, he had been unable to deeply ponder the root cause of his awakening.

Because he truly knew nothing.

He smiled bitterly in silence, then suddenly remembered that Xie Zhefeng was still watching him.

He ought not to betray any flaws at a time like this, and hurriedly gathered his expression.

Xie Zhefeng finally withdrew his gaze as well.

What had this person been thinking while looking at this face of his just now?

Undoubtedly, he must have been thinking of his senior brother.

Even though he had witnessed his junior brother treading upon sharp thorns in the Thorny River, searching for his lingering soul in tattered robes, he still could not be certain—if his identity were truly exposed and he once again became the target of public condemnation, would the sword light of Chuhan fall upon him once more?

Before his fall in the previous life, the scene of those people surrounding him to meticulously list his crimes was both blurry and clear.

It was as if he had forgotten, yet he remembered that he had forgotten something.

Zhao Duan's memories were pieced together from countless grievances, leaving everything outside their immediate view blurry and chaotic.

As he looked at everything before him, for a moment, he wondered if he were trapped within a dream or experiencing an illusion.

He knew very well that the person behind the sound-transmission talisman was not himself.

Yet if he were someone else who knew that he had been resurrected, seeing this scene, he would undoubtedly think—the former head disciple of Luoyue Peak, who had accrued monstrous sins and strayed onto the wrong path, had returned.

Setting aside the matter of resurrection, apart from him, who else from that era could possibly meet all these conditions?

An Wuxue tried to recall the enemies and old acquaintances from his past life, but the memory condensed from Zhao Duan's grievances would not wait for him, continuing relentlessly.

Although Zhao Duan had been somewhat clever out of fear of death before tinkering with the array, he was not truly smart.

Hearing the words of the person on the other end of the talisman, and imagining the miserable fates awaiting the Qiao family and the immortal cultivators of the Twenty-seventh City in the future, he eagerly followed the mastermind's instructions and used his spiritual power to alter the array patterns.

The sword array showed no reaction.

The forty-nine sword arrays of the Northern Netherworld were interconnected; if a fractional sword array malfunctioned, the main sword array of the First City would inevitably perceive it and unleash sword Qi to eradicate demons. Yet even after Zhao Duan transferred the core of one of the arrays onto a stone given to him by the mastermind, the sword array remained utterly motionless.

Zhao Duan was overjoyed. "He really wasn't lying to me!"

An Wuxue narrowed his eyes.

That stone capable of bearing the core of the array was most likely some spiritual treasure of heaven and earth linked to the primordial forces of Yin, Yang, and the cosmos.

"Do you recognize this object?"

Xie Zhefeng's voice suddenly reached his ears.

His expression paused slightly.

"I don't know," he said. "Zhao Duan probably didn't examine this stone closely; the memory is too blurry."

Though he found it somewhat familiar, he truly could not discern the stone's exact appearance.

Xie Zhefeng said, "I can't see it clearly either."

"Oh..."

Seeing that the other man's gaze was finally off him, he dared to turn his head slightly and glance at Xie Zhefeng.

The man's complexion remained exceedingly pale; his sleeves hung down, and his hands, faintly visible within the long robes, were trembling slightly.

The pain of a severed soul pierced the bones and gouged the heart, impossible to soothe in a short moment. Xie Zhefeng was still in pain.