Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 351: Departure

Tang Jie coldly looked at the man in black and said, “I’m the guy you were talking about, the one who smashed up a Gu Clan casino.”

Wei Tianchong was scared out of his wits. Casting aside the Gu Clan people, he ran over to Tang Jie’s side and asked, “What’s going on here?”

Tang Jie gave him a rough summary of Shi Yue’s situation, and then he explained what had happened at the casino, after which he asked, “So why are you helping them out?”

Wei Tianchong grinned. “Isn’t this just being sensitive to the other party’s feelings?”

No matter how awful the Gu Clan’s reputation was, they had made a marriage proposal with good intentions. It would have been fine if they had been rejected from the start, but rejecting them after his father had already accepted some gifts was rather impolite.

Thus, even though Wei Tianchong could force the Gu Clan to lower its head, it was somewhat unreasonable. If he didn’t want people to criticize him and hurt his reputation, he had to do something. It just so happened that the Gu Clan was in trouble, so Wei Tianchong naturally offered to help out.

“In order to reject the proposal, I had originally agreed to loan the Gu Clan one of our trading routes, but then I heard that it was having a problem with one of its casinos. I originally thought I could use this as a chance to flaunt my power and also take back the trade route, so I requested to come, but I didn’t think it would be you,” Wei Tianchong regretfully said.

Tang Jie also felt like it was a great pity. “If only I had known! You could have just not called me out, and then we could have pretended to not know each other and fight each other until you had me running for the hills. Wouldn’t that be fine?”

“How could I have anticipated this situation?” Wei Tianchong replied. “It seems like we’ll have to learn some sort of mind linkage spell art in the future.”

“That truly might be necessary,” Tang Jie replied.

The Divine Firmament Sword Classic had the Heart Consonance spell art, but this name had romantic connotations. Tang Jie had no plans of teaching it to Wei Tianchong. He certainly didn’t want any sort of consonance with Wei Tianchong’s heart.

As the two of them openly discussed how they might pull off a fraud, the bystanders all blushed in shame. How could people who cultivated Immortality be so shameless?

The Gu Clan’s people and the man in black joined up with the whiskered Daoist and began to release the cultivators from the grape vine.

Seeing how ardently Wei Tianchong and Tang Jie were chatting, they could guess who this person was. A Gu Clan elder came up and said, “Might you be Basking Moon Academy’s Fierce Tiger Tang Jie?”

Tang Jie glanced at the old man and asked, “Gu Liangde?”

The elder smiled. “This unworthy one is none other. Truly, by failing to recognize an acquaintance, our clans ended up fighting each other.”

Clans like the Gu Clan actually had the sharpest eyes, always knowing who could be provoked and who could not. As the patriarch of the Gu Clan, Gu Liangde was wise. So rather than asking about why Tang Jie had wrecked the casino, he instead tried to get on better terms with him.

Tang Jie didn’t even look at the old man, instead staring at the man in black. “Considering the disciple of the White Bone Divine Lord as part of your clan? It seems that Master Gu thinks very highly of me.”

As he spoke, two white bones were slowly forced out from the wounds on his fists. These were the bizarre objects that the man in black had shot into his arms.

These bones were as thin as willow branches, but they were densely covered with such intricate patterns that one could tell at a glance that they were extraordinary items. After pushing them out, Tang Jie grabbed them and put them away.

The man in black saw what was happening and said, “You know that I’m the Divine Lord’s disciple, so why aren’t you returning it?”

Tang Jie smirked. “You’re trying to compete with me in terms of backers?”

The man in black froze.

Trying to compare backers against the Basking Moon Sect while in the Sageheart Kingdom? What a joke!

The White Bone Divine Lord was a rather famous figure in the Rosecloud Domain, the master of Endsea’s White Bone Faith. Although he was the Titan of a sect, he couldn’t compare to the six major sects. The man in black could use the name of the White Bone Divine Lord to scare people, but it was useless against those of the Basking Moon Sect.

The man in black grunted, “If that’s the case, then consider those two Jade Bones a gift. Patriarch Gu, this one has business and will leave first.”

The man in black disappeared without waiting for Gu Liangde’s reply.

Now that the man in black was gone, Tang Jie turned to Gu Liangde and said, “I was playing a few rounds in your casino, but I accidentally caused some misunderstandings, which led to this fight. Master Gu, please forgive me.”

“It’s nothing, nothing.” Gu Liangde saw that Tang Jie was finally willing to speak with him and was overjoyed. “Since it was a misunderstanding, it’s all water under the bridge now.”

But to his surprise, Tang Jie simply nodded and said, “With these words from Master Gu, I can rest easy.”

He turned and left.

Gu Liangde saw that he was leaving and frantically said, “Honored Master Tang, why not stay to have a meal?”

“That’s not necessary.” Tang Jie turned to Wei Tianchong and asked, “And you? Do you still have business with the Gu Clan?”

Wei Tianchong shrugged. “We’ve discussed everything that there is to discuss, so what else could there be?”

“Let’s go, then.”

Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong left.

Patriarch Gu watched them leave, wanting to keep them but not daring to. A perfectly fine casino had been ruined by Tang Jie, but it wasn’t like he could take revenge against him. As Gu Liangde watched Tang Jie leave, there was a vicious glint in his eyes.

Several Gu Clan juniors came over and began to speak.

“Grandfather, are we just leaving things there? This Tang Jie has humiliated us!”

“My Gu Clan has been able to survive in the Canglong Prefecture precisely because of pride! He’s destroyed our casino and made our Gu Clan eat the cost, and he isn’t even willing to have a meal with us! He’s clearly treating our Gu Clan like an enemy!”

“Exactly! And that Wei Tianchong has rejected the marriage proposal. Who can’t see what the Wei Clan’s attitude is toward us? Once this incident gets out, many people will come to beat us while we’re down.”

Gu Liangde sighed. “The problem is that Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong are part of one of the six major sects. We can’t afford to offend them.”

“But it’s not like Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong are the only ones from the six major sects,” a Gu Clan youth sinisterly said.

Patriarch Gu’s eyes flashed. “Zhong Xuan, you’re saying…”

“Isn’t there that saying? Only the six major sects can deal with the six major sects!”

—————————————————

Once he was off the main street, Tang Jie quickly strode forward.

Wei Tianchong followed behind and shouted, “Tang Jie! Tang Jie! Wait for me! Where are you going, that you’re walking so fast?”

Tang Jie ignored him and kept going. Finally, after entering a small alley, he grunted and crashed into the wall, his entire body twitching.

Horrified, Wei Tianchong exclaimed, “Tang Jie! What’s wrong?”

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Tang Jie said in a scratchy voice, “Those Jade Bones had the tyrannical True Essence of a peak Mortal Shedding expert. It was so fierce, shit, I almost broke back there… Help me out.”

He tore off his clothes, exposing his back to Wei Tianchong.

“What do I do?” Wei Tianchong said in fright.

“The Heart Transporter Point!” Tang Jie barked. “Use the Seven Essence Partitioning Spirit! Yiyi, Luo Yue, keep watch for me.”

“Yes!” Wei Tianchong thrust a finger at the Heart Transporter Point.

Yiyi quickly sprinkled flower seeds over the area and began to keep guard over the area with the fox and tiger.

“Kidney Transporter, Liver Transporter, Gallbladder Transporter, Spleen Transporter…” As Tang Jie called out point after point, Wei Tianchong’s fingers flew across Tang Jie’s back. At the same time, Tang Jie thrust his own finger at his body, inserting True Essence.

This True Essence that had infiltrated Tang Jie’s body was truly tyrannical, running rampant throughout. At the start, Tang Jie thought that it had come from the man in black, so he hadn’t paid it much mind. But as time passed, he gradually sensed that something was wrong, and then he realized that he had fallen for a trap. Those Jade Bones had clearly been refined by some other expert before being handed to the man in black, which made them far more powerful than Tang Jie had anticipated.

Tang Jie didn’t catch it at first, so he fell victim to the move. If it weren’t for the Jewel Body and his Hundred Refinement body, he would have died on the spot. Even with them, he needed to work together with Wei Tianchong to slowly neutralize it.

As that domineering True Essence was finally neutralized, Tang Jie guided it into his Energy Cave Point, where it finally stopped moving. Tang Jie had originally been intending to completely neutralize this energy, but he had ultimately decided to keep it around.

This True Essence was extremely strong and had to have come from a peak Mortal Shedding expert. Alas, in Tang Jie’s body, it was water without a source, a tree without roots. If he refined it, he could use it for his own purposes.

Wei Tianchong saw that Tang Jie was okay and sighed in relief, saying, “I didn’t think that the White Bone Faith would have an expert like this.”

“Pah!” Tang Jie spat on the ground. “If he’s part of the White Bone Faith, then I’m a True Inheritor of Horizon Ocean Pavilion!”

“Eh? He’s not?” Wei Tianchong was startled. “Then why does he have the Jade Bones of the White Bone Faith?”

Tang Jie coldly replied, “The two of us have the secrets of the Five Gods Faith, so does that make us part of the Five Gods Faith?”

While he had a limited understanding of the White Bone Faith’s situation, he knew that this sect walked the path of the bizarre and sinister. And while this man in black had used covert methods and such things as bee swarms, he was far from being sinister and bizarre. Moreover, the White Bone Faith had its own famous spell arts, but while the man in black had ultimately used the Jade Bones, he had used none of the famous spells. This made it more likely that he was intentionally constructing this false image.

“Then where did he come from?” Wei Tianchong asked.

This question made Tang Jie fall silent.

After thinking it over, he shook his head. “I can’t be certain for now. But I can be sure that he’s not from Sageheart.”

Wei Tianchong snorted. “He’s not from Sageheart and he acts so arrogantly? If we run into him again, we had best thoroughly investigate him.”

Tang Jie indifferently said, “That won’t be necessary. If he manages to leave Sageheart alive, then he’ll have to thank the accumulated merit of his ancestors for it.”

Wei Tianchong’s eyes flashed. “You’re saying…”

Tang Jie callously replied, “Since he dared to wound me, he has to pay an even greater price.”

Tang Jie put on his clothes, his eyes brimming with confidence.

Several kilometers away, in a small house, the man in black was lying on a bed while howling in pain.

Blood gushed out of his chest. White medicinal powder had been sprinkled over the wound, but it was quickly washed away by the blood. No matter how much medicine he applied, the wound refused to close, glittering golden motes flashing in the wound. Through the wound, one could even see his beating heart, which also flashed with little golden flecks of light.

“Aaaagh! What is this? What is it! Tang Jie, I’ll kill you! Kill you!” the man in black crazily howled.

He found it impossible to understand what it was that Tang Jie had inserted into his body and he couldn’t force out.

He didn’t know that he had run into one of the methods of using the golden pellet that Tang Jie had been researching as of late.

The moment the golden pellet had passed through the man, it had released several extremely small golden grains that attached to the wound. As these golden grains were innately unaffected by spiritual energy, and cultivators recovered almost entirely through spiritual energy, these golden grains were very difficult to expel from the wound. The only solution was to take a knife and cut away the affected parts.

The problem was that Tang Jie had deviously attacked the man in black’s heart. Cultivators at Mortal Shedding had tenacious life forces, and even a damaged heart wasn’t enough to kill them. But this didn’t mean that they could remove their heart, cut away at it, and then put it back.

Those golden grains on his heart were like bone-gnawing ghosts, leaving the man in black in immense pain. But this wound also wasn’t enough to kill him, only constantly torturing him to the point of madness.

Of course, as a price, unless Tang Jie could run into the man in black again while those golden grains were still present on his body, he would never be able to get them back. And while there weren’t a lot of them, it was a number that would take destroying several dozen spell weapons to get back.

Back in the alley, after resting and confirming that his injuries were improving, Tang Jie prepared to leave with Wei Tianchong and Yiyi.

As he was about to go, he spotted Yanzhi and Shi Yue standing at the entrance to the alley.

Upon seeing Tang Jie, Shi Yue immediately wept tears of gratitude, came up to him, and prepared to kneel.

Tang Jie stopped her. “This isn’t necessary at all. While I have intervened, it is unable to resolve your predicament, only vent your emotions for a moment.”

Shi Yue had tears in her eyes as she looked up at Tang Jie and smiled. “I know… I only wanted to thank Young Master for acting for my sake. I’ve already decided that when I go back, I will request a divorce!”

The mention of divorce left Tang Jie startled.

In this era, the woman could request a divorce, but one first had to accuse the husband of misdeeds to the authorities, and only a judgment on a lawsuit could approve the divorce. As Rosecloud still favored men over women, a woman accusing the husband would be imprisoned whether or not they succeeded, with terms that could be as long as three months.

For Shi Yue to accuse her husband indicated that she had gathered an immense amount of courage.

Tang Jie blurted out, “You’re sure that you want to take this step?”

“Yes, I’ve made up my mind,” Shi Yue firmly said. “Just as you said, while you have given me a lot of money, it can’t sustain his gambling. And though you’ve destroyed one casino today, he’ll go and find another casino tomorrow. That being the case, it would be better to just give up on him and leave.”

She spoke those final words with utmost resolve and determination.

Wei Tianchong clapped his hands and said, “Good words! I support you. You don’t need to worry about the officials. I’ll order the estate to help you put things in order.”

After learning that Shi Yue’s husband was a gambling addict, he had been anxious to do something about it. Since Shi Yue had made up her mind, he was willing to help. Given the Wei Clan’s power, this trifling task would be easily handled.

But Tang Jie had grown quiet.

To him, whether Shi Yue left or stayed, it was all her own business. He had just been helping her out for a moment, but he couldn’t look after her forever. On the contrary, to avoid Shi Yue having any sort of fantasies, he had remained cold and indifferent. And now that Shi Yue had said that she was going to leave, he needed to be even more cautious with his words and actions so that Shi Yue would not have any unrealistic ideas.

Fortunately, Shi Yue was a smart girl who knew that she couldn’t overly rely on Tang Jie. Thus, she only softly thanked Wei Tianchong. For her, leaving her husband without paying any sort of price was already extremely fortunate.

The two parties talked for a while longer before Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong took their leave.

Shi Yue watched them leave. She knew that after today’s parting, she probably wouldn’t have a chance to meet him for the rest of her life.

She suddenly shouted with all her might, “Tang Jie!”

Tang Jie turned his head.

Shi Yue shouted, “Although I married the wrong person, it wasn’t like my eyes were wrong the entire time! I also once saw the right person!”

Tang Jie froze for a moment, and then he cracked a smile.

He nodded at Shi Yue and disappeared.

As Tang Jie vanished from her sight, Shi Yue finally broke down, dropping to the ground and weeping…

Seems like Tang Jie and his mysterious opponent were quite vicious to each other. And farewell Shi Yue. Alas, she was never able to seize Tang Jie’s heart like Xu Miaoran was.