“Xu Bingzheng’s plan failed.”
Observing with his spiritual sense, Wang Ping confirmed this once again. Because of Lin Sheng’s resolution, the resentful malevolent qi was still a far cry from what was needed to birth a demon.
However, as long as the array in this place remained unbroken, the Lin family mansion would forever be a ghost house. Given time, if more people wandered in by mistake, couldn’t find their way out, became trapped, and died harboring grievances, the accumulated resentful malevolent qi still ran the risk of birthing a demon.
To solve this once and for all, he had to break the array set up in the mansion.
“A strange art, huh.”
Wang Ping looked around, his spiritual sense finally landing on Lin Sheng’s corpse: “That’s it. The core of the entire mansion, the focal point where the resentful malevolent qi converges.”
The only way to return everything to normal was to completely destroy Lin Sheng’s corpse, because the resentful malevolent qi here all originated from him.
“But… it won’t be that easy.”
Wang Ping frowned slightly. The resentful malevolent qi swirled around Lin Sheng, acting not only as a catalyst for a demon but also as the key barrier protecting his physical body.
A mere paper figure double couldn’t break through this barrier.
Should I have my main body come?
Wang Ping shook his head. Resentful malevolent qi was formless and intangible; he wasn’t optimistic about martial arts having much effect against it. He imagined only spiritual arts would work.
But my cultivation is too low.
Of the four cultivation traits at the first stage of Tribulation Transcendence, he had only cultivated 【Spiritual Consciousness】 and 【Flawless True Body】. He still had no clue about 【Circulatory Breathing】.
And 【Manifesting Art Through Qi】 was completely out of reach.
Therefore, even if he cast 【Spirit Snatching】, he likely wouldn’t be able to shake the resentful malevolent qi within the mansion, much less destroy the corpse under its protection…
“…Hmm?”
The next second, Wang Ping looked down at Lin Sheng’s corpse right before his eyes, then turned to glance at the swallow-tail saber sheathed and acting as the door bolt.
Wang Ping had read the case file regarding Lin Sheng before coming here. It contained a record about this very swallow-tail saber. The Lin family had served as constables in Longxing County for generations. It was said that their ancestor had been a secular disciple of the 【Divine Dragon Temple】, and this saber, named 【Uphold Rectitude】, was a gift from the martial monks of the temple.
Lin Sheng must have used it to carve the writing inside the room earlier.
Judging by the handwriting, this was undoubtedly a precious blade, forged from excellent materials and capable of slicing iron like mud… At this thought, Wang Ping tentatively reached out his hand toward it.
【The Taiping Classic】!
In an instant, the swallow-tail saber vanished from Wang Ping’s grasp. Within the Morgue, the towering book subsequently turned to a brand-new page.
The fourth scripture scroll!
“…Heaven’s will.”
Wang Ping sighed with emotion. He then turned and walked toward the corpse in the center of the room. Placing his hand gently on Lin Sheng’s shoulder, he silently recited in his heart:
【The Taiping Classic】, commence settlement.
The next second, peerless mighty power descended from the depths of nothingness, ignoring the barrier of resentful malevolent qi, and taking Lin Sheng’s corpse with it, vanished instantly from the spot.
Immediately after, Wang Ping’s consciousness also sank into the Morgue. His gaze fell upon the towering book, watching the faint light blossom on the newly formed scripture scroll.
Scene after scene surfaced consecutively.
In the images, he saw a heroic young boy practicing with a blade and spear in a spacious courtyard. Judging by his features, it was Lin Sheng during his childhood.
Under the scorching midday sun, he trained until he was drenched in sweat, yet remained brimming with energy.
Standing behind him was a middle-aged man with a stern face, presumably his father, who occasionally offered guidance and corrected Lin Sheng’s movements.
Only after a long while did the middle-aged man speak deeply:
“Alright, take a break.”
Before his voice faded, Lin Sheng plopped down on the ground. Panting, he looked up at the middle-aged man expectantly: “Father, can I touch it now?”
“You child.” The middle-aged man didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He then reached down, unfastened the saber at his waist, and tossed it into Lin Sheng’s arms: “Take it, and be careful. This was passed down from your great-grandfather. It possesses an edge that can slice a falling hair and sharpness that cuts iron like mud. It is top-tier among mortal weapons.”
“Thank you, Father!” Lin Sheng said with exuberant joy, hugging the saber.
The middle-aged man was also in the mood to talk, continuing: “Back then, your great-grandfather brought this precious blade out from the Buddhist sect’s 【Divine Dragon Temple】.”
“In those days, secular disciples who could be bestowed such a blade were exceedingly few.”
“Your great-grandfather’s martial arts actually didn’t match up to this blade. However, his master at the time believed he had an upright disposition and a heart that upheld rectitude.”
“Which is why an exception was made.”
“Therefore, this blade was named 【Uphold Rectitude】, symbolizing the hope that the wielder would forever uphold rectitude, maintain righteousness, and never waver.”
“I know this!” The young Lin Sheng immediately raised his hand, excitedly saying, “This is our Lin family’s ancestral motto. I saw this phrase in the ancestral hall.”
“That’s right.”
The middle-aged man nodded slightly: “This blade and the ancestral motto have been passed down ever since. Unfortunately, your father’s martial arts are subpar, and we lack an internal force inheritance.”
“Otherwise, with the materials used for 【Uphold Rectitude】, let alone being a mere mortal weapon, it has immense potential to become a fine weapon, or perhaps even advance to a Renowned Treasure.”
At this point, the middle-aged man let out a somewhat melancholic sigh. Seeing this, Lin Sheng immediately patted his chest and declared loudly, “Don’t worry, Father! From now on, I will definitely practice martial arts diligently, become the most formidable constable in the county town, bring glory to the name 【Uphold Rectitude】, and make it a Renowned Treasure!”
“Then I shall look forward to it with keen anticipation.”
The middle-aged man smiled and patted Lin Sheng’s head. He then led him into the house. The father and son walked side-by-side, and the image froze there.
The next second, the scene shifted.
It was an ancestral hall. There was one more memorial tablet on the altar. Lin Sheng, dressed in mourning clothes with a saber at his waist, was kowtowing heavily before the tablets.
His father had died in the line of duty.
The cause was a bandit suppression operation. The various county offices of Changle Commandery had launched a joint military operation attempting to wipe out the number one bandit lord in the commandery. The result was a catastrophic defeat after falling into a trap.
According to county office regulations, Lin Sheng naturally took his father’s place, being recruited as a constable. Simultaneously, he inherited the family heirloom, 【Uphold Rectitude】.
At the time, he was determined not to disappoint the ancestral motto of 【Upholding Rectitude and Maintaining Righteousness】.
Yet, reality dealt him a harsh blow to the head.
“Killing good citizens to claim merit, slaughtering villagers outside the city… Human lives are of utmost importance. You call this a minor matter?”
“You seem to be mistaken about one thing.”
In the image, Wang Ping saw the burning Qian Village, and Chen Haoyan standing before Lin Sheng:
“When we say human lives are of utmost importance, we mean those living inside the county town—the prominent families, the scholars. As for those black-headed commoners outside the city… do they even count as human?”
Ideals and reality clashed violently in that moment.
After days of struggle, Lin Sheng chose to resist. He attempted to bypass the chain of command, reporting head constable Chen Haoyan’s actions to County Magistrate Xu Bingzheng.
…The outcome went without saying.
Investigation, suspension, and idling at home. The greenhorn youth experienced massive ups and downs within just a few months, finally seeing the true face of Longxing County clearly.
Thus, he was forced to question:
“Was Father… like this too?”
He had only been a constable for a few months and had already witnessed so much filth. His father had served for over a decade—how much had he seen, or even done?
Was the ancestral motto of 【Uphold Rectitude】 merely a delusion?
Right at that moment, Xu Bingzheng arrived.
What followed was everything Wang Ping had investigated. Lin Sheng was implanted with a strange art, becoming a hotbed to nurture a demon, struggling amidst hunger and cannibalism.
“Benefactor, you don’t have to torture yourself like this.”
Li An’s voice rang out in the image.
“I am not torturing myself.”
This was the first time Wang Ping truly heard Lin Sheng’s voice. It was weak, youthful, and carried the deep, suppressed tone of someone enduring pain: “I am merely persisting.”
“The matter with Pang Yue is already irredeemable.”
“However, you can still be saved. Although you killed someone, the fault does not lie with you, but with the person who orchestrated all of this. You must strive to survive.”
“But we can’t get out.”
Li An’s voice was laced with breakdown: “The food will run out eventually, and death is just a matter of time. Since that’s the case, why not do something that will bring you relief?”
Seeing this, Wang Ping understood perfectly. The truth indeed deviated slightly from Li An’s description. He might have truly harbored deep hatred for the swindler Pang Yue, but he likely didn’t have the courage to kill him. The reason he committed murder was more of a desperate choice born from knowing they were in a hopeless situation.
This was also the effect Xu Bingzheng intended to achieve.
And at this moment, what Li An truly wanted to ask, what he truly wanted to say, wasn’t those words of breakdown, but a much simpler, purer question:
【Why persist?】
The reason to stick to one’s bottom line and not give up on oneself, even when in a hopeless situation.
“There is no ‘why’.”
In the image, Lin Sheng softly replied:
“I am a constable of Longxing County. I wear this official uniform. If even I cannot uphold the principles of universal justice, who else will?”
Though he said this, a grave mistake had already been made. He merely avoided the worst step but failed to prevent any of it from the very beginning.
【Upholding Rectitude and Maintaining Righteousness】… I’m sorry, Father. I disappointed you…
At this point, the image shattered into pieces.
Wang Ping snapped back to reality, standing before the fourth scripture scroll. Every stroke of the writing upon it looked as if carved by a knife or chiseled by an axe, identical to Lin Sheng’s handwriting.
【Scroll Four: Courage of the Gentleman】
【Where righteousness lies, one does not bow to power, does not consider personal gain, and does not alter one’s view even if the entire nation supports it. To value death over righteousness and remain unyielding—this is the Courage of the Gentleman!】
The effect of this scripture scroll was exceedingly pure.
“I can only use this scripture scroll when my actions align with the principle of 【Upholding Rectitude and Maintaining Righteousness】.”
“Once the scripture scroll is activated, aside from a decisive fatal blow, no injury can stop my movement or affect my condition.”
What constituted a decisive fatal blow?
Under the judgment of 【Courage of the Gentleman】, it meant a headshot—in other words, unless his head was blown off, he was unkillable.
Furthermore, he would always maintain peak condition!
The next second, the world spun.
Wang Ping’s consciousness returned from the Morgue. Almost simultaneously, having lost Lin Sheng’s corpse as its core, the resentful malevolent qi within the mansion disintegrated.
Sunlight pierced through the dark clouds and fell into the courtyard.
Boom!
The ghost house crumbled in response.
…
With the retreat of the resentful malevolence, the tightly shut Lin family mansion lost its eerie nature. The ghostly talisman script seals pasted on its doors also peeled off and fell to the ground.
Wang Ping walked out of the mansion, with Li An following behind him. Facing the sun he hadn’t seen in a long time, he felt unaccustomed and couldn’t help but raise his hand to block the glare. The next second, however, he realized what he was doing and proactively lowered his hand, bathing freely in the sunlight. By the time he came to his senses, his face was covered in tears.
“Live well.”
Seeing this, Wang Ping patted his shoulder: “No matter what, your life is what Lin Sheng desperately fought to save. Living is the best way to repay him.”
“I understand,” Li An nodded, choking back sobs.
Yet, looking at him—who, despite being sallow and emaciated, was otherwise unharmed—Wang Ping suddenly frowned. A question surfaced in his mind:
“Wait… what have you been eating this whole time?”
The people in the other rooms were eaten by Lin Sheng, and the mansion had no other food reserves. Since that was the case, even if Li An wasn’t killed, he should have starved to death!
For a moment, Wang Ping almost suffered a stress reaction.
However, facing his question, Li An showed no abnormality. Instead, he also revealed a puzzled look: “I don’t know. I asked Benefactor too.”
“But he didn’t tell me.”
“Although I haven’t eaten anything, I inexplicably feel energetic and don’t feel hungry… Maybe I just have a tough life, or maybe I’m used to starving from the past?”
How is that possible.
Wang Ping shook his head, turning back to look at the Lin family mansion. With the resentful malevolence gone, his spiritual sense could gradually capture its underlying mechanics.
Using flesh and blood as the core, with a hierarchy based on strength.
The strong can freely consume the flesh and blood of the weak to fortify their physique. Furthermore, as time passes, this consumption can even occur across space.
In this moment, Wang Ping saw the viciousness of Xu Bingzheng’s scheme, his face filled with irrepressible disgust. After all, under this setup, as long as Lin Sheng had even a momentary thought of eating a human at the very end, he could effortlessly devour Li An’s flesh and blood from across space, thereby sinking completely into depravity.
Fortunately, Lin Sheng seemed to have realized this too.
That’s why he locked himself in the room and broke his own limbs… Right, he crippled his own martial arts, knocking himself down from the position of the ‘strong’!
After that, the “strong” one in the mansion became Li An.
And every time Li An felt hungry, recalling Lin Sheng’s previous cannibalism and generating a similar thought, he would devour Lin Sheng’s flesh and blood from across space!
This was why he was able to survive.
Because without his knowledge, Lin Sheng had dismantled his own flesh and blood piece by piece and fed it to him, allowing him to survive without food or water!
“…I see.”
After a moment of silence, Wang Ping waved his hand and looked at Li An: “I didn’t expect you to be so enduring. Since that’s the case, go home and have a good meal.”
This was a secret Lin Sheng took to his grave.
Since that was the case, Wang Ping naturally wouldn’t speak out of turn. There was no need to burden Li An—who had finally escaped with his life—with an excessively heavy psychological load.
But then again, this is Great Shun’s strange art?
Wang Ping’s heart was full of disdain.
After all, compared to the spiritual arts of the immortal sects, Great Shun’s strange arts—though possessing some mystical traits—were essentially barbaric, cruel, primitive, and inefficient.
To give the simplest example, for the same act of eating a human, his 【Thief of Life】 was far more elegant. There was no blood involved, and it even came with immortal light special effects.
Following that, Wang Ping had his paper figure double escort Li An home.
Meanwhile, inside the county office, Wang Ping’s main body opened his eyes and let out a long breath. With each inhalation and exhalation, a full thirteen signature techniques seamlessly integrated.
【Thirteen Grand Protectors Body-Tempering Art】!
Feeling the surging Vajra divine strength within his body, and seeing 【A Promise Worth a Thousand Gold】 relit within the Morgue, a look of satisfaction appeared on Wang Ping’s face.
“Finally paid it off!”
My peerless loan-taking talent is back!
“The boost in martial arts cultivation speed from the 【Flawless True Body】 was even higher than I imagined. Using a trait meant for immortal cultivation to practice martial arts is indeed a dimensional strike.”
Wang Ping examined himself while calculating inwardly.
Of his three previously set objectives, he had already accomplished two.
Yet the anticipated life-and-death crisis had yet to appear. This couldn’t help but make him wonder if he had been overly paranoid and cautious.
“I have absolutely no clue.”
At this thought, Wang Ping couldn’t help but scratch his head—immediately after, the hand he reached above his neck grasped empty air. He felt absolutely nothing.
“…Ah?”
Then, the world spun.
His vision plummeted rapidly from a height before fading to black. Wang Ping’s thoughts came to a screeching halt, leaving only the reverberation of a heavy object hitting the ground echoing in his ears:
Thud!