Xie Lian's gaze fell back on him. After a moment's gaze, Xie Lian said, "Qi Rong, it seems you've lived a wonderful life these past few years."
As soon as he finished speaking, Huacheng's disguise melted away. Seeing the three intruders finally reveal their true faces, Qi Rong's eyes widened. Lang Qianqiu asked in astonishment, "Cousin?"
Although he had previously guessed that Qing Gui was a native of Xianle, having heard Qi Rong mention "our Xianle," he had never imagined that he and Xie Lian had such a connection. Qi Rong stared at Xie Lian's face, slowly scanning him up and down with a strange, curious, and greedy gaze. When his gaze landed on the Fangxin sword slung across Xie Lian's back, he suddenly burst into laughter, saying, "So that's how it is, so that's how it is! Fangxin is you, and you are Fangxin. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!"
Although he didn't know why he was laughing, Lang Qianqiu felt extremely uncomfortable and angrily asked, "What's so funny?"
Qi Rong said viciously, "I'm laughing at my good cousin, what the hell is that to you! I just said your stupidity spanned a century. I'm sorry, I apologize. You're a brilliant disciple of a great master, but with your master like that, how can you be any smarter?" He turned to Xie Lian and said, "You went to Yong'an to be the Imperial Master, and in the end, you were stabbed to death by your own disciple. Isn't that fascinating? Isn't that funny? You deserved it, didn't you? You're such a loser!"
As soon as he said the word "bastard," Hua Cheng struck down with a thunderous palm. Qi Rong, already quite resilient, was inexplicably exhilarated tenfold upon seeing Xie Lian appear. Even as his face was smashed into the ground, he stubbornly cried out, "Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!"
Every time he spoke, Hua Cheng would smack him on the back of the head. The scene was extremely bloody. Xie Lian intercepted Hua Cheng's hand before it fell and said, "San Lang, forget it!"
Hua Cheng said sternly: "Why should we let it go?!"
Xie Lian said, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. He’s just sick and very difficult to deal with. I can handle it. Just ignore him.”
He patted Hua Cheng's shoulder gently. After a long pause, Hua Cheng finally whispered, "Okay."
Qi Rong pulled his head out of the ground, rolled to the side with difficulty, and said, "Why are you pretending to be kind? If you really didn't want him to hit me, you should have stopped him from the beginning! Now you're pretending to let him go, but no one will praise you for being magnanimous!"
Xie Lian said, “I only stopped him because I didn’t want to dirty his hands. Did you mistake something?”
Hearing this, a flash of anger crossed Qi Rong's blood-stained face. Then, he let out a sly laugh and said, "Oh my, Crown Prince, you have a good relationship with Hua Cheng, don't you? I was wondering why none of the subordinates I sent to visit you during the Ghost Festival ever came back? Turns out it's because you've got your hands on Hua Cheng!"
Xie Lian had no idea that Qi Rong had actually sent his subordinates to look for him. On the night of the Ghost Festival, he happened to run into Hua Cheng and brought the young man back to Puqi Monastery. Presumably, all those subordinates Qi Rong had sent had been dealt with by Hua Cheng. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but glance at the person beside him. Qi Rong added, "You still call me San Lang? Wow, you seem so familiar. Cousin, you're a high priest in the Heavenly Court. How could you be involved with such a demon? Aren't you afraid of dishonoring your status? After all, you're so perfect, so pure and flawless. Your holy light shines upon the earth. Hahahahahahahahahaha..."
The priests in the Heavenly Court all felt that Mu Qing's words were somewhat sarcastic, but if they were to listen and compare them now, they would see what true sarcasticity truly meant. They had truly wronged Mu Qing in the past. And Qi Rong didn't just recite; he acted. He held his heart and said, "Brother Crown Prince, for all these years, as your younger brother, I've thought of you all the time. Look at this stone statue I carefully crafted for you. I keep it by my side so I can always see your heroic figure. How is it? It's well made, isn't it? Do you like it? It's okay. If you don't like it, even better. I'll make you a few more. Hahahahaha..."
At the mention of the statue, Hua Cheng's face trembled with coldness. If Xie Lian hadn't dissuaded him, he would have immediately stepped on it. Xie Lian, however, knew Qi Rong's temperament well. He knew he was a bit of a psychopath. The more intense your reaction, the more excited he became, and the higher he jumped. He had to do the opposite. So, he smiled and said casually, "The sculpture is okay, but the taste is not very good. I'm sorry for that."
As expected, Qi Rong's face immediately fell as he said coldly, "Be content with yourself. Only I'm making a statue of you out of respect for our past. Who else would offer you a statue? If you can ascend again this time, you'll probably be crying and hugging Jun Wu's thighs until your knees are bruised. Just look around the Upper Heaven. Which priest isn't more prestigious than you? Even those who've flown for two hundred years can still trample you underfoot. You're almost eight hundred years old, and you've ended up like this? You're such a failure."
Xie Lian smiled and said, "My cousin is quite a failure. Unlike my cousin, he's already fierce after only eight hundred years."
Xie Lian knew exactly how to deal with him. Hua Cheng snorted a laugh, and Qi Rong's face turned pale. He glanced between the others and suddenly said, "Looking at this posture, you are not begging Hua Cheng to come to my house today to deal with me and let you vent your anger, right?"
Xie Lian was stunned. Thinking about this situation, he found himself unable to refute it. Qi Rong said, "Look at you guys. As soon as I said something bad about you, wow, he got so angry. Could it be that the holy light above your head has blinded him? Oh my, I see. It seems he was blind to begin with! Hahaha..."
Before he could finish his words, his eyes suddenly went dark, his cheek hurt, and blood spurted out. He had been punched again. However, this punch was not from Hua Cheng, but from Xie Lian.
Xie Lian acted incredibly quickly, saying coldly, "Just because I haven't hit you before doesn't mean I never will."
The punch was so powerful that it took a long moment for Qi Rong to finally utter a word. He lay on the ground like a stray dog, pounding the ground and laughing. "Brother Crown Prince, you hit me! You actually hit me! Oh my God! Our noble and kind Crown Prince, who is compassionate, helpful, and wouldn't even step on an ant to death, gave me a hard time and hit me! He actually hit me! This is unbelievable! This is unbelievable!!!"
He was so excited that he was practically mad. Lang Qianqiu had never seen anyone behave so strangely. After watching his one-man show, he was completely stunned and muttered, "Is this... is this guy crazy?"
Xie Lian was used to it and wasn't surprised. He said, "You heard it. This guy is crazy and mentally unstable. There's nothing you can trust in what he says."
At this moment, Qi Rong's laughter suddenly stopped. He suddenly became serious and sneered, "Don't rush to tell others that I'm crazy. Let me ask you, how did King Anle die?"
This question was asked to him by Hua Cheng just now, but now he was asking Xie Lian, and Lang Qianqiu suddenly became concerned again.
Xie Lian's heart sank, and he couldn't answer immediately. Qi Rong slowly climbed to his feet, leaning against the kneeling stone statue. He said, "After Anle died, I dissected his body and saw that his internal organs had been shattered by the extremely sharp sword energy. That's why he had no external injuries, but he was coughing and vomiting blood. An ordinary swordsman couldn't do this. I originally thought the Yong'an thieves had hired some extraordinary alchemist to fake Anle's death. Now I think there's someone else who would do such a thing. That person, of course, is my fair and righteous cousin. After all, our Flower Crown Martial God Prince is a holy and peerless Tianshan Snow Lotus..."
Hua Cheng stepped on Qi Rong, causing him to scream in pain. Lang Qianqiu felt like his head was about to explode. He clutched his head, his eyes bloodshot as he said, "Shut up! What have you figured out? Who is the murderer? What happened to the Gilded Banquet? What happened to Prince Anle? What's going on?!"
Qi Rong said, "Lang Qianqiu, why are you still confused? I can already make sense of everything. It seems you really don't understand your master's character at all. Come, come, let me explain my good cousin to you: This former Crown Prince of Xianle Kingdom came to your Yong'an to serve as the Imperial Preceptor and taught you swordsmanship for five years..."
He said a few words, and Xie Lian raised his sword. Before he could move forward, Lang Qianqiu's heavy sword blocked his way and said, "Let him finish!"
Xie Lian said, “You know he’s crazy, but you still listen to his nonsense!”
Fang Xin swung her sword downwards, its blade clearly slender and extremely thin, yet it shook Lang Qianqiu so much that he nearly lost his grip on the massive heavy sword. Unexpectedly, a curved silver blade delicately lifted and deflected the tip of his sword. Xie Lian was startled and exclaimed, "Sanlang!"
Qi Rong saw that Xie Lian clearly didn't want him to say more, and didn't want Lang Qianqiu to hear more, so he chose to do the opposite, seizing the opportunity to say, "Prince Anle is a good man from our Xianle. He listened to me very much and pretended to be on good terms with you. He went to the Gilded Palace and wiped out a bunch of thieves from your Yong'an. When your master saw them, Anle escaped. And you rushed to the Gilded Palace and ordered a nationwide manhunt for Imperial Master Fangxin. This is what he said before, it's absolutely correct..." Xie Lian tried to stop him several times, but Hua Cheng stopped him every time. Xie Lian said, "Sanlang!"
However, Hua Cheng remained silent, simply preventing him from passing. The more Xie Lian tried to snatch it back, the faster Qi Rong spoke: "But my saintly cousin, having witnessed Anle killing people with his own eyes, must have thought: How can this be? This is wrong. So he went to find Prince Anle, hoping to teach him a lesson. But he discovered that Anle's plans were far greater than just assassinating a few thieves. Unable to teach him a lesson, he made up his mind and personally killed the only remaining branch of his royal family! - In the end, you captured your master and nailed him to the coffin, thus ending my cousin's magnificent career as a national preceptor. Cousin, am I right?"
He spat blood at the feet of the kneeling stone statue and said, "I don't know you! You just love to do this kind of thing. Ancestors, look at what kind of good children you have given birth to. Not only has the Xianle Xie family lost everything, but they have also been wiped out from this world! Xie Lian! You are a jinx, a plague god! Your birth is the greatest misfortune for the Xianle Nation. Why can't you die? Why do you still have the nerve to live in this world?!"
Lang Qianqiu said, "But I saw him kill my father with a sword with my own eyes. How can I explain this?"
Qi Rong said, "If you're not blind and your brain isn't full of water, I can only think of one explanation. That is, Anle did stab your father, but he didn't kill him."
Lang Qianqiu asked, "Did he...did he finish off the opponent?"
Qi Rong screamed, "What are you talking about! My good cousin is such a kind person, why would he finish off the enemy right away? He must have felt embarrassed to finish off the enemy right after he went up, so he must have thought about saving the other person first. But, hey, I'm afraid it's your father who brought this upon himself."
Lang Qianqiu asked, "What do you mean by harming yourself?"
Qi Rong asked, "What's the first thing someone does after being rescued from near death? What was the first thing you did after seeing so many people die in the Gilded Palace?"
Lang Qianqiu hadn't figured it out yet, so he said, "... Arrest the murderer."
Qi Rong said, "Isn't that right? After my good cousin saved your father, he would have said something like, 'National Master, hurry up, it was Prince Anle who did it, go kill Prince Anle for me!' No, no, no, it's not just that. He must have said something more powerful, like, 'National Master! Call Qianqiu! Call everyone! Kill all the Xianle people in the country! I want them buried with me!!!'"
He mimicked that furious, desperate tone, a chilling tone that made Lang Qianqiu's face turn pale. Qi Rong continued, "Even if he hadn't been killed then, Anle would have slaughtered your mother and a whole host of other thief relatives right in front of him. Sooner or later, he'd have targeted other Xianle people in the kingdom. Your good master sensed something was amiss and, after careful consideration, decided he couldn't let this old fellow go. Of course, he struck him dead with a single blow of his sword. He's just like that. He acts like a saint who can't tolerate any injustice, but he constantly engages in self-destructive behavior that harms others. He tries to please both sides, but ends up getting neither. Hehehe, hahahahahaha..."
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