Chapter 407
Chapter 407
The peerlessly beautiful Queen Su Mo of the Qiang Kingdom trembled all over, unable to hide her fear. She crouched before Aruotai’s corpse, her mind racing but finding no answers. Aruotai’s martial arts were second only to Aruogang’s, making him undeniably stronger than Aruonana. Why, then, had he been so miserably defeated? He had always been so valiant; how could his skills have deteriorated so quickly? That was a question Aruotai himself would have most wanted to know. Before he died, his eyes were wide with bewilderment.
Shen Lang walked over to Su Mo and crouched in front of her.
“Why?”
Su Mo asked Shen Lang.
“Is there a reason to ask why?”
“There must have been something wrong with the cigarettes you gave him. They must have been secretly weakening his martial arts.”
It was inevitable. Even a man with a body as hard as iron could not have withstood the cigarettes Shen Lang had laced with special ingredients. What’s more, King Aruotai of Qiang had been smoking them for months. The only reason he hadn't noticed the side effects was that he smoked constantly, never giving withdrawal symptoms a chance to appear.
Su Mo continued.
“You truly are vicious. You’ve been planning all of this for months. Aruogang’s death was your doing, and Aruotai’s decline was all your work as well. The avalanche just now must have been your scheme, too.”
Shen Lang said nothing.
“You are the most vicious and the most formidable person I have ever met.”
“Your brother, Su Nan, is just as vicious as I am. And quite brilliant, too.”
“True, but he is too greedy. You have no personal greed, but he wants far too much.”
“In contrast, my goal is singular: to kill every last member of your Su Clan.”
Tears streamed down Su Mo’s face. She reached out and closed Aruotai’s eyes, a hint of regret in her gaze. Shen Lang asked her.
“A person like you couldn’t possibly have had real feelings for him, could you?”
“Aruotai was a scoundrel, but Aruogang was a demon. After spending so much time with a demon, being with a scoundrel felt like I’d gone from hell to heaven.”
Su Mo’s words made sense.
“You won’t let me live, will you?”
Shen Lang nodded.
“I won’t.”
“Can you let me end it myself?”
“So be it.”
Su Mo ran with all her might to the edge of the square and leaped off the side of the mountain. A moment later, a dull thud echoed—the sound of her body hitting the ground. And so, Queen Su Mo of the Qiang Kingdom died in the prime of her life. Shen Lang didn't go to see her body, but the warriors beside him who did returned with their mouths agape at the gruesome sight.
***
Prajna Bodhisattva wandered through the ruins of the Great Calamity Palace as if on a sightseeing tour to broaden her horizons. Her pockets were filled with stone fragments of various shapes, weighing over a hundred pounds in total. But to her, they were so light she carried them effortlessly, as if holding nothing at all. Shen Lang was also observing the stone reliefs of the Great Calamity Palace. In a way, they were artistic treasures. The vividly carved stone figures were on par with those found in the temples of India. The stone carvings of the Great Calamity Palace were even more mysterious and steeped in a deeper sense of history.
Shen Lang discovered that the stone carvings depicted events from the ancient era before the Great Collapse. He was startled by this unexpected find. Were the stories of the ancient era told in these carvings true, or were they merely the wild speculations of the monks of Great Calamity Temple? It was beyond the imagination of an ordinary person. What kind of civilization had existed in the ancient era? It was likely a place far more mysterious and powerful than even Shen Lang could imagine.
At first, Shen Lang had been looking casually. He would never admit that his interest was piqued by the carvings of androgynous humans coupling. But the more he looked, the more astounding they became, and Shen Lang quickly committed the images to memory, as if taking photographs with his eyes and saving them to a computer. Shen Lang had heard many times that the Left Emissary of the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion was taking his disciple, Ling Han, to excavate ancient ruins in various countries. At the time, Shen Lang had even scoffed at him for being pretentious. Weren’t ancient ruins just a source for a few secret manuals? But now, Shen Lang realized the Left Emissary’s work was truly remarkable, that he was genuinely trying to uncover traces of ancient civilization. Perhaps the Left Emissary was so engrossed, so utterly absorbed in his work, that he had no interest in anything else around him. Having just discovered a mere fragment, like a single fish scale, Shen Lang could already sense the power and mystery of that ancient civilization.
As Shen Lang continued to explore the stone carvings, he suddenly noticed someone else beside him, also observing them. He looked up and saw it was Prajna Bodhisattva. His gaze instinctively drifted down below her waist.
‘Prajna Bodhisattva really has a beautifully shaped rear.’
“Scum!”
Prajna Bodhisattva spoke coldly, then crouched down to continue studying the stone carvings.
‘The air felt different next to me for some reason. So it’s because this scum was here.’
Shen Lang sheepishly backed away. He couldn't argue with the truth, after all. Before retreating, he glanced back at her one more time. Prajna Bodhisattva had a willow-like figure, slender and graceful when standing, but as she crouched, the curve below her waist became quite pronounced, making its presence known.
‘Shaped like a peach?’
“That scum!”
As expected of a Bodhisattva, she must have had eyes in the back of her head.
***
Su Jianting was so filled with regret it felt as if his insides were being torn to shreds. Had he known it would come to this, he never would have fled. There was only one path down the great snowy mountain; it wasn't as if he could fly away. At first, with his powerful inner energy and lightness arts, Su Jianting ran very fast. As the heir of a noble family, he had practiced the finest internal energy manuals. Wu Lie and Ying Yang were not inferior to him in martial skill, but since they had essentially learned their arts in the fighting pits, their qi and lightness techniques were not as refined as his.
Big Dummy didn't know lightness arts, so he just stretched his legs and ran like a madman. Initially, Su Jianting was far ahead, but as his qi was depleted, he began to slow noticeably. Big Dummy, in contrast, maintained the same speed. After running for dozens of miles, Big Dummy finally caught up to him. Having been overtaken, Su Jianting thrust his sword at Big Dummy with all his might. As a practitioner of high-level martial arts, his sword was incredibly fast. But now, Su Jianting’s qi was almost completely gone. Besides, while Big Dummy couldn't block the sword of a Grandmaster, or even the sword of a Su Dian, could he not block Su Jianting’s?
“Block!”
“Block!”
“Block!”
After more than a hundred thrusts, Su Jianting’s grip tore, and he coughed up blood. Big Dummy had blocked the sword with such immense force that the recoil had shaken his internal organs, causing him injury. After his sword was blocked over a hundred times, Su Jianting felt as if the tendons in both his hands were snapping, joint by joint. He had never felt so hopeless in his life. Once his qi was completely exhausted, Big Dummy grabbed him by the neck, lifted him like a kitten, and dragged him back up the mountain.
He fell even deeper into despair. Big Dummy’s speed climbing the mountain was just as fast as it had been coming down. To think that running dozens of miles and blocking over a hundred sword strikes was, for Big Dummy, as effortless as taking a piss and giving a little shake—it was the ultimate humiliation.
Su Jianting's martial arts were clearly superior to Big Dummy's, yet he had met such a cruel end. So what was the point of learning martial arts? It was all for nothing!
***
Thump.
Su Jianting was thrown before Shen Lang. Shen Lang crouched down and said to him.
“Brother Su, back when you came to the Count of Xuanwu's Estate to show off by sparring with Mulan, did you ever imagine a day like this would come?”
He honestly had never considered it. Back then, Su Jianting hadn't given Shen Lang a second thought, regarding him as nothing more than dust.
“During the Gold Mountain Island dispute, when you lent your masters to the Tang Clan and slaughtered the warriors of our Jin Clan at the salt fields, did you ever imagine a day like this would come?”
Of course, he hadn't.
“Back when my father-in-law and I were away from home, you, Brother Su, led masters from the Western Regions to our Count of Xuanwu's Estate and went on a rampage, killing a hundred innocent people. You even cut down my mother-in-law and the others with your sword. Did you ever think then that a day like this would come?”
Su Jianting lifted his head, looked at Shen Lang, and said.
“There is a saying: ‘If a man does not look out for himself, heaven and earth will conspire to destroy him.’ Since we decided to be enemies, it’s only natural to kill you all and pull you out by the roots!”
Shen Lang clapped his hands and said.
“Well said! Speaking of pulling things out by the roots, it reminds me of the Ginseng Fruit tree in *Journey to the West*, which Sun Wukong uprooted. He threw it down and shattered it, and in the end, Bodhisattva Guanyin restored it to life for the rest of its days…”
Su Jianting was stunned.
‘What are you talking about?’
Suddenly, Su Jianting felt a cool sensation below. He looked down and saw bright red blood gushing from between his legs. Something lay on the ground. The root of his life was gone.
“Aaaargh!”
Su Jianting could no longer hold back and let out a wretched scream. Shen Lang had castrated him. He was the dignified heir to the Marquis of Zhenyuan, and though he couldn't compare to a once-in-a-generation prodigy like Zhu Hongxue, he was still a renowned young hero. To think that Shen Lang would castrate him without hesitation, as if gelding a pig.
“Shen Lang, just kill me, kill me!”
Su Jianting shrieked. Shen Lang lit three cigarettes and stuffed them into Su Jianting’s mouth.
“Don’t scream. Smoke these; the pain will lessen. You’ll be fine soon.”
Su Jianting instinctively took a few drags from the cigarettes in his mouth, and the pain truly did subside.
***
In the square of the Great Calamity Palace.
Nearly ten thousand warriors assembled in orderly ranks. Aruonana gave them the command.
“The entire army will descend the mountain!”
Braving the endlessly falling snow, nearly ten thousand warriors began their majestic march down the mountain. Looking north, the view was a sea of white, with nothing visible. Gazing in the direction he believed White Night Fortress to be, Shen Lang said.
“Zhang Chong, you must hold on. I will soon lead a great army to your rescue.”
Shen Lang and his party vanished from the mountaintop without a trace. Only then did the Great Calamity Palace on the peak fall silent. Prajna Bodhisattva, who had been studying the ruins, was startled.
‘Why did it suddenly get so quiet?’
She turned around and saw that the square of the Great Calamity Palace was empty. Not a single person was in sight. Looking beside her again, she saw a sleeping bag, an iron pot, and provisions of food and meat.
‘What are these?’
They were soap and shampoo, now frozen into a solid block. Beside them, a line of text was written.
“Scum!”
Prajna Bodhisattva once again immersed herself in the carvings of the Great Calamity Palace. The Sword King Li Qianqiu had left, but she had to feign ignorance. What else could she do? She couldn't defeat Li Qianqiu.
‘Master, I did my best. Marquis Su Nan, as for the ancient manual you sent me when you asked me to kill Li Qianqiu, I will one day return it to you. Taking money without doing the job goes against the principles of our Demon Rock Daoist Palace.’
Prajna Bodhisattva decided to descend the mountain in half a month. The remaining stone carvings here were meaningful artifacts; she needed at least half a month to study them. But perhaps, when she finally came down in half a month's time, she might not have to return the ancient manual she had received from Su Nan after all.