Holding back pain, the cultivator who had broken his legs spoke, “Han-… HanGuang-Jun!”
Lan WangJi walked beside him and got down, pressing on his legs to check his wounds. His injuries weren’t too severe. He got up, but before he could speak, the cultivator continued, “HanGuang-Jun, you’ve come too late. Wei WuXian just went!”
Quite a few people knew that in the past few days, HanGuang-Jun of the GusuLan Sect had been searching everywhere for the whereabouts of Wei WuXian, probably wanting to settle things with him and have him pay for the dozens of lives that the GusuLan Sect lost. Someone hurriedly shouted, “Yeah, he’s been gone for less than an hour!”
Lan WangJi, “What did he do? Where is he going?”
The people immediately started complaining, “He fought with us without a care for anything and almost killed all of us right there on the spot!”
Lan WangJi’s fingers, hidden beneath the snow-white sleeves, twitched slightly, as if he wanted to clench them into fists. However, he quickly loosened them.
The cultivator quickly added, “But he said already that he was going to the Nightless City to account for things with the Four Great Sects!”
After the QishanWen Sect was destroyed, the main palaces of Nightless City had become a magnificent, yet empty pile of ruins.
Before the tallest place in the entire Nightless City, the Palace of Sun and Flames, was a wide plaza. Three tall flags stood skyward at the front of the plaza, but now, two of them had been broken. The last one left was a flag of the sun and flames motif, although tattered and painted with blood.
That night, square arrays of sects both large and small filled the entire plaza. The crest-embroidered flag of every sect fluttered in the night wind. In front of the broken flag poles was a temporary altar. Standing before their array, each sect leader was presented with a cup of wine by Jin GuangYao. After they received the wine, the sect leaders raised their cups high up and poured them onto the ground.
After the the wine had seeped into the dirt, Jin GuangShan stated, “No matter the sect, no matter the surname—this cup of wine is to the soldiers who have died.”
Nie MingJue, “May their souls live on.”
Lan XiChen, “Rest in peace.”
Jiang Cheng, however, still had on a darkened expression. He didn’t say anything even after he poured the wine.
Afterward, Jin GuangYao walked out from the LanlingJin Sect’s array and presented with both hands a square box made of black iron. Jin GuangShan took the box with one hand and raised it high in the air, shouting, “Here lies the ashes of the Wen Sect’s remnants!”
After he spoke, he sent forth his spiritual energy and shattered the box with his bare hand. The iron box broke into pieces, and white dust drifted alongside the cold wind.
A scatter of the ashes!
A series of cheers exploded through the crowd. Jin GuangShan raised his hands, signaling for the people to be quiet and listen to him talk. When the cheers slowly died down, he continued, raising his voice, “Tonight, the ones whose ashes had been scattered were the two leaders of the Wen Sect’s remnants. And tomorrow! It will be the rest of the Wen-dogs and—the YiLing Patriarch, Wei Ying!”
Suddenly, a low laugh interrupted his grand speech. The laugh was too untimely, sounding both stark and jarring. In unison, the crowd turned to look at where the sound came from.
The Palace of Sun and Flames was a rather magnificent palace. A total of twelve ridges made up its roof, and at the end of each ridge were eight heavenly beasts. Yet, right now, the people realized that on one of those ridges, there were nine. The laugh from before came from over there!
The extra beast shifted slightly. The next moment, a boot and a corner of black clothes dangled down from the roof, swaying softly.
Everyone placed their hand onto their sword hilt. Jiang Cheng’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand.
Jin GuangShan was overcome with both shock and hatred, “Wei Ying! How dare you show yourself here!”
The person opened their mouth to speak. What came out was indeed Wei WuXian’s voice, but he spoke in a strange tone, “Why should I dare not show myself here? Do you people here even add up to three thousand? Don’t forget that back in the Sunshot Campaign, let alone three thousand, I’ve fought against five thousand on my own before. And by appearing here, haven’t I granted your wish? No need for you to come all the way to my home tomorrow to scatter my ashes.”
A few of the QingheNie Sect’s disciples died in the hands of Wen Ning as well. Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “What arrogance.”
Wei WuXian, “Haven’t I always been arrogant? Sect Leader Jin, how does it feel, having slapped yourself in the face? Who was the one that said he’d let the matter go if the Wen siblings went to Koi Tower and gave themselves up? And who was the one that just said he’d scatter my ashes and the ashes of the rest of the Wen Sect’s remnants tomorrow?”
Jin GuangShan, “Let’s consider things as they stand! At Qiongqi Path, you slaughtered over a hundred of the LanlingJin Sect’s disciples—this is one thing. You made Wen Ning kill at Koi Tower—this is another…”
Wei WuXian, “Then let me ask you, Sect Leader Jin, at Qiongqi Path, who was the one being ambushed? And who was the one to kill? Who was the main schemer? And who was the one being schemed against? In the end, just who was the one that came to provoke me first?”
Hidden among such a large crowd, the disciples inside of the arrays all felt rather safe. Bravening up, they shouted, “Even if Jin ZiXun was the one who schemed to ambush you first, you shouldn’t have been so heartless and kill so many lives!”
“Oh,” Wei WuXian helped him analyze, “If he wanted to to kill me, he didn’t have to think about whether it was a fatal blow or not, and if I died, it’d be my own bad luck. If I wanted to protect myself, however, I had to think about this and that not to harm, unable to take even a single strand of hair away from him? In conclusion, you all could pull a siege on me, but I’m not allowed to fight back, am I right?”
Sect Leader Yao raised his voice, “Fight back? Those over a hundred people and the thirty on Koi Tower were all innocent. If you were fighting back, why did you have to involve them?”
Wei WuXian, “The fifty cultivators on Burial Mound are also innocent, so why do you have to involve them?”
Someone else spat, “Just what great kindness has the Wen-dogs given you? To have you be on those scum’s side like this.”
“In my opinion, there isn’t any great kindness at all. It’s just that he thinks he’s a hero fighting against the entire world. He thinks he’s doing an act of justice, that he himself is quite an impressive person, risking everyone’s condemnation!”
Hearing this, Wei WuXian became silent.
The crowd below took his silence as withdrawal, “When it comes down to it, you were the first to place such a dark curse on Jin ZiXun!”
Wei WuXian, “May I ask you, just what evidence do you have to prove that I was the one who placed the curse?”
The one who asked the question was at a loss for words. He spoke, after a moment, “Then do you have any evidence to prove that you weren’t the one who placed the curse?”
Wei WuXian smiled, “Then let me ask you again—why couldn’t it have been you? You don’t have any evidence to prove that you weren’t the one who placed the curse either, do you?”