Chapter Forty-Seven: The Death of Zongzheng

Zong Zheng was instantly scared out of his wits, and it took him a long time to squeeze out a single sentence: "You're all right?"

Ye Huan slowly turned around, but the tip of his blade never left Zong Zheng's chin: "Answer my question, or die!"

That was just the way Ye Huan was. He was entirely two different people at home and outside. To outsiders, he didn't even want to waste a single redundant word.

Sometimes I even wondered if he had a bit of a split personality.

Zong Zheng smiled faintly: "It seems Yuan Zheng still left a backup plan. That's fine too, we can..."

Suddenly, the knife in Ye Huan's hand changed direction, cleanly hacking off Zong Zheng's left arm.

Ye Huan's striking speed was so fast that Zong Zheng didn't react until he saw his own arm fall to the ground, clutching his left shoulder as he fell and screamed in agony.

Little Bud stepped forward and gave Zong Zheng a kick: "Stop pretending. You're possessing Zong Hanlin's body, so you wouldn't feel any pain even if you lost an arm."

Before Little Bud could finish her sentence, she froze, because she saw ghost-fires floating from Zong Zheng's severed arm. Terrified, Little Bud stammered, "Br... Brother Huan, did you chop up his soul as well?"

With a expressionless face, Ye Huan pressed the tip of his knife against Zong Zheng's left eye: "I don't want to hear nonsense."

Zong Zheng's face turned ashen with pain. One must know that once a soul is injured, the pain it suffers far exceeds human imagination.

"I... I..." Zong Zheng must have been in too much pain to speak, but Ye Huan gave him no quarter at all, thrusting the tip of the blade forward and piercing his eyeball.

Zong Zheng's screams echoed through the mountain forest, yet Ye Huan casually withdrew his long saber: "Bud, pull his soul out, send some nether Qi over to revive him a bit, I want to keep questioning."

Little Bud turned pale with fright: "Br... Brother Huan... I don't know how to do it!"

Ye Huan casually pulled out a fishhook: "Stuff it down his throat and pull it out."

"Don't worry, the original owner's soul has already been consumed by him. Right now, you're just pulling out a corpse, so the underworld won't count this debt against you."

"Oh, oh..." Only then did Little Bud take the fishhook and walk toward Zong Zheng.

Gritting his teeth to endure the pain, Zong Zheng said, "Don't... don't do it, I'll talk, I'll tell you everything!"

Ye Huan gently pressed his long saber down, placing the blade horizontally right between Zong Zheng's legs: "Speak!"

Zong Zheng hurriedly said, "The dragon's throat inside White Dragon Cliff is too narrow; normal people can only crawl in. Unless we blast the mountain open, we won't be able to walk in upright. However, once we do that, White Dragon Cliff will be ruined. Once the Fengshui leaks, no one will benefit."

"The method our ancestors came up with was to control the Black Tiger Fiend to confront the White Dragon, carefully calibrating the scale during this period. After pushing the White Dragon to a desperate extent, we suddenly withdraw the Black Tiger Fiend."

"At that moment, the White Dragon will impatiently devour the spiritual energy on the Golden Toad. Then, I can hide my soul within the spiritual energy and rush into the White Dragon's mouth along with it."

"At that time, the demonic Taoist hiding in the cave will definitely be fighting for the spiritual energy as well. Using the spiritual energy as cover, I can rush into the opponent's Niwan Palace and seize the demonic Taoist's body."

"My path to becoming a ghostly immortal will then be achieved!"

Cold light flickered in Ye Huan's eyes: "Yuan Zheng, what will happen if he enters the White Dragon's mouth?"

"You'll run right into the demonic Taoist!" Zong Zheng said: "No matter how powerful an expert you are, you can't get into the dragon's throat. Ye Huan, why don't we join forces..."

Ye Huan's blade flickered to the left, slicing horizontally to sever the other man's left leg: "Don't talk nonsense when I'm not asking you!"

Zong Zheng trembled all over from the pain. Ye Huan had already pressed the blade against his right leg: "Speak, how can we bring Yuan Zheng out?"

Ye Huan struck too heavily, leaving the other man with no hope whatsoever.

At a time like this, if you want to extract the truth from someone, you have to leave them with at least a glimmer of hope. Otherwise, knowing they have no chance of survival, they will simply grit their teeth and hold out to the end, leaving you with nothing.

Realizing his doom had arrived, Zong Zheng suddenly burst into loud laughter: "Bring him out? Right now, besides me, no one else can ever bring him out."

"Go ahead and hack me more? Every cut you give me means Yuan Zheng suffers that much more pain."

"Today, unless you pay back every single cut you've given me, I'll make you watch with your own eyes as Yuan Zheng is torn to pieces."

Without even saying a word, Ye Huan raised his hand and sliced twice, chopping off all of Zong Zheng's remaining limbs, and pointed the tip of his blade straight between the man's eyebrows.

Only then did Zong Zheng truly feel fear: "Ye Huan, let's talk this over. Don't you want Yuan Zheng's life? I can..."

Before Zong Zheng could finish his sentence, his head flew high into the air, yet his eyes still held boundless terror.

Right before his death, Zong Zheng finally realized he had chosen the wrong person to threaten, but it was already too late.

Little Bud was also frightened out of her wits by Ye Huan: "Brother Huan, you just killed him like this, can you still save Young Master San?"

Ye Huan calmly replied, "Bandits never hesitate or dawdle in their actions. When someone uses your close kin to threaten you, they always strike to kill first. If you can't save them, you pay with your life afterward."

"If you really act heartbroken and endlessly nag like in the movies and TV shows, in the end, everyone just dies together."

"This is the experience summarized by bandits, and it is also the survival code of bandits!"

The reason Ye Huan spoke so many words was not to explain it to Little Bud, but to comfort himself.

While Ye Huan was killing, I also coaxed out the true spirits of those deceased victims, and the scenes of those years instantly materialized before my eyes.

From the perspective of a victim, I saw six or seven grave robbers.

One of them had a rope tied around his waist, crawling into the dragon's throat, but before he had crawled very far, he stopped moving.

The leader shouted in a low voice: "Pull him out!"

Several grave robbers pulled the rope together, and unexpectedly hauled a headless corpse out from the dragon's throat. What was even more terrifying was that apart from the blood smeared on the corpse's neck, not a single drop of fresh blood had flowed out.

When a person is decapitated, although there will be a massive spray of blood, it shouldn't run completely dry within a mere minute or two.

What on earth was inside that cave that instantly drained the victim's blood?

The leader frowned: "Take the anti-zombie talismans and send another one in."

As the grave robbers looked at each other in dismay, none of them dared to take the lead. The leader drew his firelock: "Who is going to disobey?"

Trembling with fear, the grave robbers selected a man, hung him all over with talismans, tied a rope around his waist, and sent him back into the cave.

This time, the man only managed to crawl three or four meters further before all movement inside the dragon's throat ceased.

The grave robbers hurriedly pulled the rope, dragging yet another headless corpse out of the cave entrance.

Someone said cautiously, "Boss, shouldn't we stop trying? Let's go back and think of a plan before coming back?"

The leader's expression shifted uncertainly several times, seemingly wanting to leave yet unwilling to give up. While he was hesitating, he heard someone cry out: "Look, blood is flowing out of the dragon's throat."

When the leader looked toward the dragon's throat, the soil nearby had already turned a blood-red color.

"Run!" The leader had barely shouted when my vision went black, and the lingering resentment of those people dissipated accordingly.