Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

Feng Ran had randomly called together his fellow forest survivors for a drink.

“I don’t think you’ve called us here just to drink, right?” said Li Rong quietly as he used his left hand to get some food for himself since his right arm was all bandaged up.

Feng Ran smiled gently and didn’t answer the question. Instead, he switched the topic and said, “It’s only a few months to the internal disciple selection. What do all of you intend to do?”

“I don’t really intend to do anything. I’m still recuperating from my injuries, so I’m in no shape to compete with anybody,” said Wang Xianxian after taking a sip of wine. The indignation in his eyes disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared.

“Hoho.” Gu Suihan just chuckled, as if he hadn’t been part of the group that had nearly been killed just days ago. His expression was one of complete indifference.

Everyone took note of each other’s different reactions.

For a while, there was no other sound at the table beside the sound of eating and drinking. Nobody wanted to be the first to speak up and nobody wanted to be at a disadvantage, so staying silent was the best option.

After some time, Feng Ran remarked casually, “In half a month’s time, the three major factions of power are going to send some people out to check out a secret realm.”

Crack! The chopsticks that Wang Xianxian was using suddenly broke into two. Li Rong’s calm expression disappeared as he grabbed his cup, downed the wine inside it, then crushed the cup to powder.

Gu Suihan paused for a moment as he reached for some food, but everything went back to normal almost immediately after that.

“This is our only chance.” Feng Ran then closed his eyes and sat down on the floor without saying anything else.

After a brief moment of silence, Wang Xianxian narrowed his eyes and said quietly, “How can we be sure that this isn’t a trap?”

Everyone slowly turned to look at Feng Ran. They were obviously interested in finding out why he was so confident.

“The sect is going to send the mission out soon. I’m quite close to someone in there. The three major factions of power have taken in several gifted disciples this time round and their cultivation speed is pretty fast since they have the support of their factions. They have no lack of techniques and weapons, but the one thing they lack is actual fighting experience. The leaders of the factions have used their connections to find out about this mission early and have decided to send their newbies out on this mission to hone their fighting skills while the four of us are still recuperating from our injuries and would be in no state to interfere with this matter,” said Feng Ran as his eyes suddenly widened and revealed the murderous intent in his heart.

“The disciples higher up aren’t going to do anything about it?” asked Li Rong cautiously with his head bent.

Feng Ran sniggered. “This is a low level secret realm, and even though it contains some treasures, it’s not like a high level secret realm that can be brought back for refinement. None of the higher level disciples are interested. Besides, apparently the three leaders have already told the rest of the internal disciples that this secret realm is theirs. Any internal disciple who dares to interfere will be punished by them.”

“Oh wow! How scary!” said Wang Xianxian sarcastically with a disdainful look.

“Perhaps they’re pretending it’s merely to gain fighting experience in order to trick us into going,” muttered Li Rong.

“So…even though other disciples outside those factions might not interfere,” said Feng Ran with a serious face, “it doesn’t mean that the leaders themselves aren’t going to be part of it. So, please consider these things carefully.”

Gu Suihan chuckled. “If it’s really for gaining experience, then they might not be part of it. After all, if someone at the Foundation Establishment stage goes, then their disciples won’t get to gain any experience. Also, they’ve probably guessed that we might go. They might be hoping that we’d be a great knife sharpener for their disciples.”

“A knife sharpener?” Everyone’s expression instantly fell.

“I’ve lost a number of jiangshis and I need to gather some materials to make new ones,” said Li Rong before disappearing almost immediately.

Wang Xianxian licked his lips and said, “I’ve heard that those people have a lot of money.” He downed the wine in his cup and left quickly, but there was a murderous aura around him as he walked off.

“Let me know when it’s happening,” said Gu Suihan as he smiled gently at Feng Ran. He was smiling, but his smile was so mirthless, that it could strike terror in one’s heart.

“Hoho, Fang Suyu,” murmured Feng Ran as he sat back down at the table all by himself.

After leaving, Gu Suihan did not return to his residence. Instead, he headed straight for an area outside of the Compounds where disciples would put up their wares for sale.

It was very common for disciples to quarrel, fight and end up killing someone. But the sect ignored all of this because there were simply too many external disciples for them to watch all the time. The disciples were not allowed to kill another person within the Compound, but nobody cared about what happened outside the Compound.

Because it was a dangerous place that wasn’t under the protection of the sect’s rules, anyone who set up shop was either someone with a powerful backer or someone who was formidable enough to protect themselves.

Gu Suihan had to get rid of a few things to get enough Spiritual Stones to buy a few things to arm himself with.

He laid an old piece of cloth on the ground, emptied his storage ring out on it, and displayed the items randomly. Then, he closed his eyes and rested while waiting for someone to come by.

The items displayed on the cloth included Chuan Xin’s spear, the sword Elder Wang gave him, three mid-grade magic weapons he found inside Chuan Xin’s storage ring, and a few bottles of pills like Core Refining Pills, Qi Gathering Pills, and so on.

“I’ll take everything for one Spiritual Stone,” said a gruff voice as he flung a Spiritual Stone at Gu Suihan. Everyone in the vicinity watched as a greedy-looking muscular man reached for the things on the ground.

As he stretched his left hand out towards the items, he kept his eye on Gu Suihan and gripped his club tightly, ready to attack anytime.

Gu Suihan looked really surprised that he was getting such a customer. Didn’t this man notice that there were high-grade weapons here? These weren’t things that an ordinary person could offer, after all. In his opinion, this muscular man was either a really formidable fighter or just downright stupid.

He decided it was the latter.

Everyone was still focused on the muscular man when they suddenly realized that Gu Suihan had disappeared.

Before they realized what was going on, a familiar but terrifying cracking sound hit their ears.

The head of the muscular man went flying and blood spurted a few meters into the air.

Everyone gulped and subconsciously touched their own necks in fear.

Even if Gu Suihan didn’t know who that muscular man was, it didn’t mean that nobody else knew who he was. That fellow was notorious for being a vicious one. He was at the Perfect Physical Realm and was a mean character, so he always got his way. Nobody expected him to lose his head over bullying a newbie. They started wondering if this newbie was from the East Compound.

While they were still speculating, an even more terrifying thing happened.

Gu Suihan grabbed the muscular man’s head, touched it gently, and started chanting, then grabbed hold of the dark gray cloud that came out of the man’s head.

The gray cloud screeched and wailed before Gu Suihan swallowed it emotionlessly.

“That’s…that was Wang Han’s soul…” exclaimed one of the onlookers in horror as he shuddered.

“Oh my god…”

“He’s…he’s from the East Compound. That’s Gu Suihan, the same one who killed Li Xianlong,” another onlooker said in a trembling voice as he suddenly recognized Gu Suihan.

Everybody instinctively took a step back. But they slowly calmed down again when they saw that Gu Suihan wasn’t going to attack them.

Gu Suihan ignored the crowd as he removed the muscular man’s magic storage bag, emptied its contents onto his own cloth, then shut his eyes again.

The marketplace slowly went back to what it looked like before this incident. Disciples continued to promote their items and others came to haggle over the prices.

But all of them continued to secretly discuss Gu Suihan among themselves. Most of the time, disciples got excited when a disciple from the East Compound came to sell things here because they usually had better quality items on hand. But after Gu Suihan had killed his first customer so swiftly just now, nobody dared to look at what he was selling.

After some time, someone finally couldn’t resist the temptation. After all, the magic weapons that Gu Suihan was selling were high-grade items that could increase one’s fighting prowess by at least 30%.

“He-hello there, how much are you selling this for?” asked a disciple with a West Compound token politely after he cautiously inched towards Gu Suihan.

Gu Suihan opened his eyes slightly to see that the disciple was pointing at the Qi Gathering Pills.

“There are ten pills in one bottle, all high grade pills. Each one will cost 15 Spiritual Stones and there are three bottles in total. You can have them all for 420,” said Gu Suihan quietly. The pills weren’t worth very much so he didn’t mind selling them a little more cheaply. The spear and the sword were the more valuable items.

“I’ll take them all then!” The disciple was very excited to hear this price because Gu Suihan’s offer was not only reasonable but also on the low side, which made him feel relieved. He was hoping to amass as many pills and Spiritual Stones as possible so that he could complete the Qi activation process in one shot.

But of course, if Gu Suihan asked for a lot, he wouldn’t have a choice but to pay the price, since he didn’t want to die.

After the transaction was made, Gu Suihan peeked into his storage ring. He had about 700 odd Spiritual Stones already, so with this additional 420, he had about 1,200 Spiritual Stones. He was still a long way off from his target.

As for those mid-grade Spiritual Stones, he had already used them up. Now, he was really just a small step away from fully activating his Qi. He just needed to cultivate for a few more days and he would probably be able to convert all his meridian channels to Spiritual Meridians in preparation for the Foundation Establishment stage.

Once the other disciples saw that someone had managed to successfully buy something from Gu Suihan, they confirmed that Gu Suihan was serious about selling his wares and swarmed toward his little stall to ask about the various items for sale.

“If you don’t even have 500 Spiritual Stones in your pocket, you can get lost now,” Gu Suihan answered their questions impatiently. He was so annoyed that such a large crowd had suddenly come his way and tried to bargain with him.

“These?” he said as he pointed at the muscular man’s items, “you can have these for 200 Spiritual Stones.”