Chapter 88: Wu Xingyan Was Not Dead

In the ancient temple, there was only an empty table, and on it sat a small incense burner.

Chutian studied the censer for a while. The tabletop was spotless, plainly showing that someone cleaned it often.

He reached out and touched the incense burner, giving it a gentle twist.

Crack!

The floor behind Chutian suddenly slid aside, revealing a stone stairway leading down into the earth.

At the sight of it, Chutian hesitated for a moment, his gaze fixed on the pitch-black opening below.

In the end, he still went down the stairs.

Beneath the temple was a dim secret chamber.

As air surged in, oil lamps around the room suddenly burst to life.

By the faint glow, Chutian took in the chamber’s layout.

It was not large, no more than a dozen square meters at most. At the far end stood an offering table, and on the wall behind it hung a portrait of an elder who seemed to possess the bearing of an immortal.

A man of over sixty, clad in a gray robe, with a long beard and an ethereal air, and carrying a sword on his back, appeared clearly in the painting.

Wu Xingyan!

Chutian’s pupils contracted. He recognized the old man in the portrait at a glance—it was unmistakably his dead master.

Someone here was actually venerating Wu Xingyan’s portrait?

The incense burner still held the lingering scent of burned incense, as though someone had only just paid homage to Wu Xingyan not long ago. That only deepened Chutian’s surprise.

He lifted his head and stared directly at the portrait.

At that moment, the elder in the painting wore an arrogant expression, like some peerless immortal untouched by the mortal world, looking down on the common people beneath him with lofty disdain.

“Hmph. An old villain like you, guilty of so much evil, and even after death someone still worships you?”

With a flick of his finger, a spark of fire suddenly appeared and shot straight toward Wu Xingyan’s portrait.

The flame struck the painting, yet the scroll did not catch fire.

In the next instant, the spark vanished at once. It seemed the painting was wrapped in a protective spiritual force, impervious to both water and flame.

Chutian was slightly startled. This scroll was actually protected by spiritual energy?

“You vile beast! You destroyed my body, and now you still dare to break my offering?”

At once, a dark, furious roar rang out from within the painting, as if something had been awakened.

That terrifying voice echoed endlessly through the dim chamber, like a demon’s chant drilling into the ear.

“You’re not dead yet?”

Chutian’s expression darkened, and vigilance rose sharply in his heart.

He had originally thought Wu Xingyan had been utterly destroyed, yet he had not expected the other man to have left behind a thread of soul, and even more shockingly, that someone had preserved it and burned incense to him day and night.

Could Wu Xingyan be trying to resurrect himself through the power of worship?

It was not impossible.

At the very least, Chutian himself knew several arts of rebirth after catastrophe.

As long as the soul did not perish, there was always a chance of being born again!

“Vile beast, this old man is not so easy to kill!”

“Since you have barged into this old man’s chamber, I will never spare your life today!”

At that moment, the image in the scroll changed once more.

Wu Xingyan within the painting moved as though he were a tiny living man, pacing about inside that miniature world.

The elder who had originally carried a long sword on his back suddenly drew it forth, the blade flying out and piercing beyond the painting.

“I want you dead!”

Wu Xingyan inside the scroll bared his eyes in fury. The long sword gave off a faint, needle-bright gleam, like an enraged lion about to burst from its cage.

“Hmph. Dead, and still making trouble.”

Chutian threw a punch, sending a streak of force hurtling forward.

Boom!

The force struck the painting, but caused no great upheaval.

Even though Chutian’s punch had already shattered the chamber wall, the scroll itself showed not the slightest damage.

At that moment, the scene within the painting changed again.

The tiny sword, only a few inches long at first, became a three-foot blade the instant it passed through the scroll.

A beam of sword light shot out from the painting, aiming to slay Chutian where he stood.

Heaven-Devouring Demonic Art!

Chutian’s body shook as a black whirlpool of mist surged into existence before him.

Boom!

The sword light plunged straight into the black mist, vanishing in an instant as though a clay ox had entered the sea.

Yet even after withstanding the blow, Chutian could not help but take a step backward.

The Heaven-Devouring Demonic Art could devour everything, and within that consumed sword light, Chutian could feel the lingering power of Wu Xingyan.

The blade was incomparably sharp, faintly threaded with spiritual energy, as though condensed from pure essence, exquisite beyond measure.

A flash of cold light flickered in Chutian’s eyes.

If not for the fact that he possessed such a domineering and unparalleled art as the Heaven-Devouring Demonic Art, and if not for the fact that his cultivation had broken through repeatedly in succession, he truly might not have been able to block that sword.

Had this been the Chutian of a month ago, there was no way he would have been able to take it so easily.

“Hmph, is that your strongest strike?”

Chutian smiled faintly, his gaze once again falling on the scroll.

Within the painting, Wu Xingyan’s face was twisted with ferocity, as if he were about to lunge out of the scroll and devour whoever stood before him.

But the little figure in the painting was only half a meter tall, flailing wildly inside the scroll. Seen that way, he looked somewhat ridiculous.

“Since you’re already dead, then go to hell properly. Stop daydreaming about coming back to life!”

Chutian traced a talisman in the air, and a blaze of fire shot forth once more, landing on the scroll.

“Aaah!”

This time, the painting could no longer withstand the blazing flames. The whole scroll was quickly set alight.

That sword strike had already exhausted the power within the painting, and Wu Xingyan could no longer unleash a second sword.

Amid a burst of miserable, agonized cries, the painting was completely reduced to ashes.

But a streak of light flew out of the embers and darted toward the chamber’s entrance.

“Trying to run?”

Chutian reached out and seized that streak of light.

A black vortex rose in his palm, swallowing the light directly.

“Aaah!”

Wu Xingyan let out a shrill, bloodcurdling scream, and was completely absorbed by Chutian.

The spiritual energy remaining within that streak of light was naturally also drawn into Chutian’s body.

Chutian could feel that Wu Xingyan had been worshiped for a very long time, which was why he had managed to gather such dense spiritual energy within himself.

Of course, that spiritual energy now belonged to Chutian.

However, what had remained in the painting was only a sliver of Wu Xingyan’s divine consciousness, not his entire soul.

In other words, Wu Xingyan was still alive, living somewhere Chutian did not know!

At that thought, a strong unease surged in Chutian’s heart...

Afterward, Chutian left Mount Taiji, found Han Bao again, and returned with him to Tianmen City.

This trip to Mount Taiji unexpectedly uncovered the secret that Wu Xingyan had not died!

It seemed that the news of his jade thumb ring must also have been leaked by Wu Xingyan.

By the time Chutian returned to Yunhe Villa, it was already three in the morning.

He lightened his steps as much as possible, so as not to disturb his senior sisters in their sleep.

The next morning, inside Yunhe Villa—

“Chutian, get out of bed right now!”